Functional Path Training

Injury Prevention - A Transparent Process

Injury prevention is implicit in a sound comprehensive training program. The program must address all components and dimensions of training in a balanced manner. (The key here is multilateral unbiased training) Train the athlete in a program that addresses sport demands and meets the athletes individual needs and 99% of injury prevention will be taken care of. Simple in concept but complex in application but it can and should be done.

Speed To The Max

Last fall I did my seminar on speed at Leeds Metropolitan University in England hosted by Brendan Chaplin. Brendan had it all videoed and now it is available for purchase. In this seminar/workshop I share my experiences of 44 years of coaching people to be faster both in terms of Linear Speed and Multidimensional speed and agility. I think you will find a very useful resource because I share my experiences of what worked, what did not work and my questions going forward.  Go to http://tinyurl.com/pnwvq5z to view the trailer. Order it now while there is a special offer:  The price is £147 for 5 days only. Then it’s £237. 

Running Mechanics - Part Three

To correct running mechanics it is best to use Fault/Reason/Correction Paradigm. First identify the fault in the mechanics. Then find the reason for the flaw and then correct the flaw. Look at the big things first in the context of the PAL Paradigm. Get a sense of the flow of the action, before looking at specific considerations. Focus in on smaller pieces of the puzzle only after global considerations have been addressed. This is in concert with the whole/part/whole concept of motor learning, start with the whole action in this case running, then look at the parts. Decide what parts need attention. Design task oriented drills or movements that will reinforce the correction of those parts. Rather than focus on the fault you are trying to correct, give the athlete a task to achieve that will correct the fault. Above all coach the correction, don’t coach the flaw. Allow the runner to explore and solve the movement equation, then, as soon as possible relate the drill back to the whole action.

In designing and selecting drills to improve running mechanics, answer the following questions: Why drill? Drill to reinforce correct patterns or to change or improve incorrect patterns. What drills? The drills should be as directed and specific as possible. A few drills clearly defined and well chosen are better than a large number of general drills that dance around the issue. Make sure that the drills are in fact reinforcing correct mechanics that relate to each individuals specific needs. When is it best to do the drills? The optimum time for learning is when the person is fresh and fully recovered from any previous training stress. Therefore drills are best done near the start of a training session. How to do the drills? Based on the objective of the respective drill make sure that the drill is correctly executed.

Drills alone and running are sometimes not enough to improve running mechanics. Improved strength is a big factor in improving running mechanics. Segmental weakness can contribute to poor mechanics, especially in the core. Therefore it is important to couple any program that attempts to improve running mechanics with a sound strength training program that utilizes multi-joint and multi-plane exercises.

The following is a checklist of running mechanic skill faults to look for and correct. This is by no means an exhaustive list.

         Posture

                  Sitting – Leaning backward

                  Bending forward at the waist

                  Excessive side-to-side sway

                  Head Position – Back or Forward

         Arm Action

                  Swing across the midline of the body

                  Arm carriage

                           Too High

                           Too Low

                  Abbreviated arm action

                  Excessive arm action

         Leg Action

                  Foot strike

                           Exaggerated forefoot or heel                             contact                                                   

                  Stiff hips

                  No knee lift - Shuffling

Running mechanics vary with and must be adapted to the speed of the run. A sprint has different demands than a distance run. Running mechanics occur on a continuum from a pure sprint to a long distance run. The most visible change along the continuum is in the amplitude of the movement.  A sprint demands longer stride length, greater air (flight time) and shorter ground contact time. As well as a vigorous arm action, higher knee lift and a forefoot foot strike. Efficiency is not as much of a consideration as is the pure production of power. A distance run will have shorter strides, much shorter flight time, longer ground contact time, a mid foot to rear foot strike and lower more economical arm action. The longer the distance run the more important the efficiency becomes.

Summary

Improving running mechanics is not a quick fix. It demands constant attention and fine-tuning like any other motor skill. Because it is a motor skill it is teachable and learnable. Don't be in a hurry, it takes time. It requires body awareness, balance and good basic core and leg strength. Each running step is a step toward ingraining a new motor pattern or reinforcing an established pattern. Beware of drill for drill sake. Oftentimes drills break the movement into too many component parts. Always relate the drill to the whole action of running. 

Resources

The following resources would be useful for those seeking further information on running mechanics:

Sport Specific Speed The 3S System® by Vern Gambetta and Gary Winckler Available at www.gambetta.com

Running – Biomechanics and exercise Physiology Applied in Practice by Frans Bosch and Ronald Klomp

DVD – Straight Ahead Speed by Vern Gambetta and Steve Odgers Available at www.gambetta.com

Functional Training – Method or Madness? Part Three

All movement is functional; it is just to what degree is it functional. Function is integrated multi-directional movement. Functional movement is meaningful movement that is part of a chain reaction, not an isolated event. Movement occurs on a continuum of function. Some movements are more functional than other based on the end object of the training.

Less Functional>>>>>>Most Functional

Sterile – Artificial              Non Sterile - Real Life

Foreign Function               Real Function

1     2     3     4     5     6     7     8     9     10

To determine placement on the continuum of function there are basic evaluative criteria:

Plane(s) of Movement - If the movement involves multiple planes of motion as opposed to movement in one plane then it is more functional.

Joint Involvement – If the movement involves multiple joints as opposed to isolation on one joint then it is more functional.

Speed of Movement – If the speed and tempo of movement is as fast as can be controlled then it is higher on the continuum of function.

Proprioceptive Demand – If the movement is of high proprioceptive demand thane it is higher on the continuum of function.

Mindful – If the movement is mindful, demands attention and concentration then it is higher on the continuum of function, as opposed to being to put the mind on autopilot and not having to concentrate to execute.

Carefully look at he movement that you are trying to enhance. What are the forces involved? What is the dominant plane of motion? Movement occurs in all three planes of motion simultaneously: Sagittal, frontal, and transverse. Therefore it is important to train movement in all three planes.  It is imperative to understand the movements and then design the training program accordingly.

Sport performance regardless of the sport is a multidimensional activity. It takes place in a dynamic environment, that forces movement to occur in all planes of motion using multiple joint movements to produce the desired movement mechanics. We move period! Performance involves the whole kinetic chain - Toe Nails to Fingernails – to reduce and produce force. This process ensures optimal neuromuscular control and efficiency of movement.

Movement is a complex event that involves synergists, stabilizers, neutralizers, and antagonists all working together to reproduce efficient triplanar movements. Therefore the basic foundational principle of functional training is to train movements not muscles. Sport scientist Roger Enoka put it best: “The function of a muscle depends on the context in which it is activated.” Different movements use muscles differently. The muscles are slaves of the brain. The brain does not recognize individual isolated muscles; rather it recognizes patterns of movement in response to sensory input. The Central Nervous System is the command station that controls and directs all movement. The CNS calls for patterns of movement that can be modified in countless ways to react appropriately to gravity, ground reaction forces, and momentum. Each activity is subjected to further refinements and adjustments by feedback from the body’s proprioceptors. This process ensures optimal neuromuscular control and efficiency of function.

Functional training is not about measurable strength. How much you can lift or how many foot-pounds of force you can express on a dynamometer are meaningless numbers. Instead quality of movement, rhythm, synchronization and connections are what is important. The goal is always the ability to apply the strength that is developed in the actual sport performance. How is the force expressed? Can you produce and reduce the force? Force production is all about acceleration, but often the key to movement efficiency and staying injury free is the ability to decelerate and stabilize in order to position the body to perform the desired movement. A good functional training program will work on the interplay between force production, force reduction and stabilization. The end result is functional strength

Over the years I have derived basic principles to guide the training. These are the foundational principles of functional sport training. Use these as you guide and you will have consistent results.

Functional Athletic Development Principle One – Train movements not muscles

Functional Athletic Development Principle Two - Dynamic postural alignment and dynamic balance are the foundation for all training

Functional Athletic Development Principle Three - Train fundamental movement skills before sport specific skills

Functional Athletic Development Principle Four - Train core strength before extremity strength

Functional Athletic Development Principle Five - Train bodyweight before external resistance

Functional Athletic Development Principle Six  - Train joint integrity before joint mobility

Functional Athletic Development Principle Seven  - Train strength before strength endurance, power before power endurance

Functional Athletic Development Principle Eight - Train speed before speed endurance

Functional Athletic Development Principle Nine - Train to build work capacity appropriate for your sport or event

Functional Athletic Development Principle Ten – Train Sport Appropriate - You Are What You Train To Be

The body is incredibly smart, it is highly adaptable and self-organizing which gives it an amazing ability to adapt to radical extremes in terms of environment and all the various stressors that can be placed upon it. Look around and see movement with different eyes. Recognizing that the body is smart will open a whole mew vista in training and rehab. There are no limits beyond your imagination and creativity as a coach, teacher or rehab specialist. Look for possibilities not limitations and dysfunctions; give the body credit for its wisdom and then coach, teach and rehab accordingly. Enjoy the process and marvel at the discoveries.

Understanding and applying a functional approach to training is a challenging process. It is often contrary to conventional wisdom as represented in mainstream sport science research. In order to move forward this should not limit us. We need to use conventional wisdom as a staring point and move forward to think and act outside the box.  Follow your instincts and allow your creativity to be expressed through movement. Follow the functional the functional path to improved performance.

Functional Training – Method or Madness? Part One

As someone who is considered the father of functional sports training I think it is time to revisit the concept in order to better understand it - Where did it come from, how it evolved, where it is today and where it is going. Functional training is a label for a concept. As with any label it is subject to various interpretations. I originally conceived it as multi lateral training integrating various training modalities (medicine ball, stretch cord, weight training, dumbbells, body weight etc.) to produce significant adaptation in specific performance parameters. It trains all systems of the body while recognizing and respecting the wisdom of the body. The end result is a highly adaptable athlete who is able to perform without limitations in the competitive environment. Contrast this to biased one- sided training that results in adapted athletes who are inconsistent in performance and prone to injury.

For me the concepts came together and solidified in the late 1980’s. I was alarmed at the biased one-sided training regimens that I saw being imposed on athletes. We were trapped in a reductionist, mechanistic approach that segmented the body into parts and separate systems. We were creating robotic athletes that were good in a sterile training environment but had difficulty transferring training to the sport. It was also clear to that if you are doing too much of one thing then you are probably not doing much of something else, it was a zero sum relationship. The result was an athlete fully adapted to that one component of training.

 

To thrive in the performance arena demands the polar opposite, a versatile highly adaptable athlete whose training is not biased, but reflects the demands of the sport and the needs of the individual athlete. The problem was the failure to recognize that for the body to execute movement, whether it is a sustained endurance activity, explosive bursts or fine motor skill that all parts and systems need to work together in harmony. Movement is s symphony not a solo. You can’t do a “cardio” workout, just like you can’t do a “neural” workout. You better hope every workout has a cardio vascular and a neural component, because all systems of the body work at all times with the demand on a particular system determined by the intensity of the activity. To continue the symphonic metaphor a section of the orchestra is featured or highlighted while the other parts of the orchestra are still playing, albeit in the background. Let's also give credit to the conductor; the brain, the muscles and all systems of the body are slaves of the brain. It is the brain that drives, connects and controls movements to enable us to accomplish the desired task. To use Tim Noakes term the brain is the "central governor." So we can’t lose sight of the whole, the big picture in the desire to understand the parts. What evolved as functional training gives the body credit for it’s inherent wisdom and it’s ability to learn to link, sync, connect and coordinate in order to play the beautiful movement symphony we call sports performance.

 

At the time I had been coaching close to twenty years and been exposed to many ideas and methods of training, some of which worked and some of which failed. I was at a stage in my career where I thought there had to be a better way, I realized a better way was an eclectic approach that combined my interpretation of sport science research, study in methods and concepts of rehabilitation coupled with my practical experience both as a coach and as an athlete. Someone labeled it “functional training” and the name stuck; to me it is just common sense training.

Evolution of Strength Training – A Personal Perspective Over Fifty Years (Part Three)

In 1973-74 while attending graduate school at Stanford University I also had the opportunity to coach the jumpers and decathletes. This gave the opportunity to apply what I had learned with more mature male athletes. It was also the opportunity to work with Payton Jordan, the track coach at Stanford who was a pioneer in weight training. He had worked with a man named John Jesse who authored many books on strength training for sport. Jesse was way ahead of his time in the application of strength training to prevention and rehabilitation of injuries. Doctor Wesley Ruff, my adviser, encouraged me to do research in the area of strength and power training, which I found very helpful. This helped me to better understand the scientific reasons for the things that I was observing as a coach and experiencing as an athlete.

In 1975 –77 coaching Track & Field and Cross Country at Santa Barbara high school was my first experience working with female athletes, I did not make distinctions as to gender, they were athletes. They strength trained with the boys. In fact we learned that the girl’s derived even more spectacular benefits than the boys and that they needed to continue their strength training throughout the season or the drop off would be dramatic. The Strength training was an important part of the program regardless of the event or gender.

A watershed moment for me came when I was coaching at Cal Berkeley in the spring of 1978. We were doing some research at Shriners Hospital biomechanics lab in San Francisco on my runners. It involved biomechanical analysis, EMG and force platform analysis. One day when I was at the lab I was introduced to a women, looking back, I would guess who was in her mid fifties at the time. Knott and Voss at Kaiser Permanente hospital in Oakland had trained her when they were doing their original research on Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF). We talked for over an hour about the concepts of PNF.  Just like everyone else I had mistakenly thought PNF was a stretching technique when in fact it was a strengthening technique used to rehabilitate polio victims. The concepts stuck in my head. I began to research it more and came to the conclusion that the principles needed to be adapted to my strength training system. It was my venture outside the sagittal plane and the traditional lifting movements. It was something I continued to prefect over the next few years and I continue to use today. It literally opened up a whole new vista for me in regard to strength training. It became much less about how much an athlete could lift and much more on movement patterns with appropriate resistance.

Before the late 1970’s there did not seem to be distinctions between all the styles or schools of lifting. You just put together an eclectic program, you were not labeled a free weight guy, an Olympic lifting guy or a HIT guy, and you trained athletes. Two things changed this:

1) Olympic lifting ascendancy in the late 1970s that I believe resulted from the spectacular gains made by the Bulgarian weight lifters. The Bulgarian methods were thoroughly detailed by Carl Miller in his book “Olympic Lifting Training Manual.” The Olympic lifting movements had always played a major role in weight training for improving sport performance, but things seemed to change in the late seventies. There was an attempt to blindly copy Olympic lifting training protocols without any apparent regard to its relationship to the whole training program. Just because an Olympic lifter, who does nothing but lift, is able to lift up to five times a day does not mean that a football player or a basketball player can copy what they do. Different sport, different demands, different body proportions. Olympic lifting for sport performance is a means to an end. If you are an Olympic weight lifter then it is as end in itself, because those lifts are the performance standard.

2) The rise in popularity due to marketing in the mid 1970’s of a new machine oriented system based on a cam system that was invented by Arthur Jones. The Nautilus system based on eccentric loading and one set to failure. It was not that these were the first machines, but they were the first machines that were marketed with a training system and philosophy to back them up. It appealed to the American mentality of instant gratification. It was hard work, but it was over rather quickly. In addition because of the eccentric emphasis it was possible to gain hypertrophy rather quickly, which appealed to American football.

Things began to change rapidly with the advent of the full-time professional “Strength Coach.” In the seventies there were very few strength coaches at any level and if there were most of their attention was centered on football. In professional sport there were few fulltime strength coaches, in fact you count them on the fingers of one hand across all sports. In 1976 the Dallas Cowboys hired Bob Ward, who was the track coach at Fullerton College in California. He had a full time year around program that was backed by management so that the player’s had to comply. This was the exception, not the norm. Superior talent and genetics continued to prevail even into the late 1980’s. Not all the teams in professional football had fulltime strength and conditioning coaches. The advent of the strength coach in college and professional sport was like a good news bad news joke. The good news was that now there would be someone who whose sole responsibility was to condition the athletes. The bad news was that was that with the exception of those who had a track and field background they seldom got out of the weight room and all programs were derivatives or copies of the football program regardless of sport or gender.

Evolution of Strength Training – A Personal Perspective Over Fifty Years (Part Two)

After graduating from Fresno State I went to University of California Santa Barbara for my teaching certification. While there I was fortunate to take a class from Sherman Button on Fundamental of Conditioning. He was way ahead of his time with the material and concepts that he presented.( I appreciate that even more as look back at what he taught us) It was a great class because of his comprehensive approach to conditioning built around weight training. The two textbooks for the class were especially helpful. Pat O’Shea’s book “Scientific Principles and Methods of Strength Training.” and “Foundations of Conditioning” by Falls, Walls and Logan. As a class assignment we had to design a yearlong comprehensive training program for our chosen sports. I put together a program for track and field that incorporated all components of training. It was an initial attempt at periodization, but most importantly it forced me to look at strength training in a new light. I was now a coach as well as an athlete. I was responsible for other people’s performance. I had to teach them skill and have them ready for competition, so I had to pay attention to the big picture. Strength was only one part of the equation, although a most important part.

That spring, in my first track coaching assignment, I got the opportunity to coach one of the best athletes I have ever coached, Sam Cunningham. He became California State Champion in the Shot Put that year and also an All American football running back. He was 6’3” tall, weighed 225, he could run the 100 in 9.7, but by my thinking he was “weak, “ because he could not lift much weight in the weight room. Yet he had tremendous explosive power. This led me to begin to ask the question: How much strength is enough? A question I would continue to ask throughout my career. A question I continue to ask today.

In the fall of 1969 I began training for the decathlon. I did all my strength training with Curt Harper, a world-class discus thrower. Working with Curt we trained on a varied program that involved Olympic lifting and power lifting. I got very strong. The only problem was that the work in the weight room was not transferring into performance on the track and in the field. I obviously had the emphasis wrong. Once again I begin to question the whole place that weight training had in the program. Three things led me to modify my approach 1) The writing of Ken Dougherty in his books Modern Track and Field and Track and Field Omnibook, especially the latter. In these book he talked about concepts that would latter evolve into my thinking on special and specific strength. 2) Training for the decathlon in Santa Barbara gave me the opportunity to train with some of the greatest athletes in the world. I saw how they trained. It also gave me first hand exposure to the European methods of training that up until that point I had only read about. This exposure to the Europeans let me to question the traditional approach that we were taking. They spent less time in the weight room, when they did come to the weight room they were not to be as strong as we were, but they seemed to be able to do a better job of expressing their strength and transferring to their events. They did fewer exercises and seemed to emphasize lighter and faster movements. They engaged in more varied activities like jumping and all types of throws. 3) In the fall of 1971 Pat Matzdorf, from University of Wisconsin, moved to Santa Barbara to train. He had broken the world record in the high jump that year. His strength training was very different than anything I had seen. Bill Perrin, the track coach at Wisconsin, and a real innovator designed his program. It involved what he called simulation training, which consisted of specific strength training exercises that worked on various parts of the whole jump using a variety of methods including weights and rubber tubing. He also utilized depth jumps in his training. This was my first exposure to a systematic application of Plyometric training.

From 1969 to 1973 I coached at La Cumbre Junior high school in Santa Barbara, California. It was first hand experience working with growth & development in the pre-pubescent and pubescent male athlete. There was not much equipment or even free weights. The strength program consisted primarily of push-ups, pull-ups, dips and rope climb. At this age, with the tremendous linear growth that was occurring body weight exercises were very appropriate loading. I felt that the key objective was to lay a base of athletic fitness that they could harness when they went to high school. Although at the time I felt somewhat shortchanged that we did not have more weights, in retrospect I was on the right track.

Another key milestone in the evolution of my ideas on training in general and strength training in particular was the 1972 AAU Learn by Doing Track & Field clinic in Sacramento, California organized by Fred Wilt. Many of the top track & filed coaches in the country were in attendance. The opportunity to interact with them was invaluable. Two of the “Learn by Doing” stations were devoted to Plyometric training, which was new and revolutionary at the time. Each evening there were presentations by Polish triple jump coach Tadeusz Starzynski, he presented the whole spectrum of his training program for triple jumpers that had produced Joseph Schmidt, three time Olympic Gold medalist. It obviously involved a lot of jumping exercises, but it included medicine ball work and some very specific weight training. Certainly nothing heavy like our jumpers were doing at the time. There was nowhere near the extent of weight training we were having our athlete do and the weight training that was done was much more specific. This experience had profound influence on how I trained my athletes for explosive power from that time on. I immediately incorporated his concepts and ideas in my own training, as well as with the athletes I was coaching. The results were a tremendous increase in explosiveness and speed.

Building & Rebuilding The Athlete Seminar DVD's

In 1992 I started teaching a seminar called Building and Rebuilding the Athlete. I taught the seminar on a regular basis from 1992 until 2005. It was a seminar/workshop that defined functional training and rehab and challenged conventional wisdom in those areas. The emphasis was on how all the components of training fit together to build a complete athlete who would be fully adaptable to the sport or activity they were training for. During that time virtually everyone who are now leaders in the field attended the seminar. I never videoed the seminar despite continued requests to do so. Fast-forward to Leeds in the UK this past November. I was invited by Brendan Chaplin, S&C coach at Leeds Metropolitan University to present the latest updated version of the Building and Rebuilding the Athlete seminar. It was a great audience and an outstanding venue. Brendan videoed the whole seminar and is offering it for sale. So finally the seminar is now available for all. To purchase the DVD’s go to: http://www.strengthandconditioningeducationonline.com/home/vern-gambetta

Here’s a list of the videos in the Building the Complete Athlete Series….THERE ARE 16 VIDEOS IN TOTAL!!!

• Introduction: In the video Vern sets the scene about his coaching and how you can apply the lessons he’s learned over the last 40 years.
• Building your Functional Framework: In this video Vern discusses developing your philosophy of coaching, what are we actually trying to do? How to get better as coaches and what our roles really are. This will get you thinking about your views on the matter.
• Coaching Nuts and Bolts: This video is all about how to coach, the art of coaching versus the science and Vern’s thoughts on this! You’ll become a better coach simply by watching this one video alone.
• Sport Demands: This video will teach you how to assess sports requirements and what you need to be looking for.
• Skill and Technique: This video will outline the importance of skill and technique and how this intertwines with physical development. You can’t build skill on poor physical competence base.
• Work Capacity Training: In this video you’ll learn about how to build work capacity in your athletes. Vern has some unique and key elements when it comes to this highly misunderstood area of our profession.
• Work Capacity Application: This video will teach you how to apply the concepts of the work capacity video. You need that theory but more importantly you need to know how to apply the theory to actually get those results.
• Physical Literacy: Everything starts with this, you must have it, and you must know how to assess and develop it. Learn how in this video.
• Physical Competency Assessment (PCA): Learn how to begin with your athletes with this assessment process. This starts the Building the Complete Athlete process!
• Periodisation Nuts and Bolts: This is all about planning. Where to put certain training units, and what you REALLY need to think about and include in your periodised plans.
• The Importance of Core Strength and Stability (2 videos): Vern discusses ‘Core Training’ in these videos and makes some extremely valuable statements about how to actually train the core. These could be the most valuable videos in the series!
• Multi Directional Speed and Agility Training: This practical video shows how Vern develops Gamespeed and movement qualities. You’ll pick up some superb drills and exercises to get your athletes moving well on the field or court they compete on. There’s also some key questions answered about what you can train and what you can’t!!
• Functional Strength Training: This video shows Verns’ progressions when it comes to strength training. Learn how he has achieved success in this area with pretty much every major sport in the US and at the highest level!
• Plyometrics: What they constitute, how to programme them, what not to do, and most importantly how to actually COACH them!
• In-Season Training: In this video you’ll learn about planning training for athletes in season. There are some major things to avoid and some big things that you need to include too. Volume and intensity are also covered in detail leaving you with a blueprint of how to get the best from your athletes or clients.

Movement Screening

How can you call something a functional movement screen when most of the movements are in positions that are at low levels of function for any athletic body? We need to always keep in mind that we have three movement constants the body, the ground, and gravity. In movement assessment we want to see the effect of gravity on the body and how the body effectively uses the ground to be able to stabilize, produce, and reduce force. Screening using artificial movements in a sterile environment is of little or no value.

As a coach I want to know what an athlete can do, where I can start them on a progression on a continuum of function in their training. Every athlete at every level has “deficiencies,” are those really deficiencies or are they in the eye of the beholder. The perceived deficiencies must be evaluated in the context of the athletes training background, development age and the actual sport. Each athlete has a movement signature, a fingerprint that defines him or her as an individual in regard to their movement patterns, to change that is very difficult and of questionable necessity. We also need to remember when we are screening movement that the body is asymmetrical, to seek symmetry is unrealistic. Proportionality right to left and front to back is a more realistic and practical goal.  

I have different movements that I use to evaluate my athletes depending on the sport and their developmental age. No seven tests will fit all athletes; one size does not fit all. Also remember that Testing = Training and Training = Testing. Every training session includes fundamental movements that I use for ongoing evaluation against a baseline. The bottom line is to develop a screen that works for you in your situation that gives you actionable information that you can translate into an improved training program.

This I Believe – An Athletic Development Manifesto

I not writing this to tell you how to train your athletes but I am asking you question what you do, why you do it, how you do it and when you do it. Think and question, seek answers.  On whose authority do I speak? Frankly I speak on the authority of wisdom based on experience and common sense. I have a passionate belief in defining the field of athletic development and of the importance of coaching and the role of the coach in the whole process. I am a coach. As a coach I have tried many methods, explored many disciplines and fully explored the science of training. I choose not to be constrained by conventional wisdom; rather I choose to use conventional wisdom as a starting point. I specialize in being a generalist. Being a generalist allows me to focus on the big picture, the connections and relationships that define athleticism. The arena of athletic competition on the track, the fields, courts and pools of the world are laboratories to test these concepts. There is no hiding in this arena; it is a results driven world where flawed concepts, training mistakes and inadequate preparation are quickly exposed.

The basic concepts of athletic development are quite simple; you don’t have to make it complicated. That is why being a generalist is so important; it allows you to make relationships and connections that the specialist because of their narrower vision will not see. Over reliance on tools and technology will not get the job done. You need a coach with experience to ask the hard questions and interpret the data. Without that, high tech tools are no more than random number generators that confuse rather guide us.

Much of what I stand for is not new it has worked in the past in a myriad of environments but has been rejected by some as old fashioned, not high tech and scientific enough. Certainly in every field of endeavor everything old is new again, but because of our society’s rejection of the past we have not studied the coaches who paved the way for us. It is trite to say that we stand on the shoulder of giants but without coaches like Bill Bowerman, John Wooden, Doc Councilman, Geoff Dyson, Franz Stampfl, and Percy Cerruty where would we be today in terms athletic performance. They were innovators who were not afraid to challenge conventional wisdom. I have been very fortunate to learn from many people. Most importantly I have learned from the athletes that I have coached. Who better to learn from? They were the ones who did the training; they were the ones, who competed, they lived it.

My concepts of training are based on study of past training methods, sports science research, proven practice, and practical experience working with all levels of athlete across a spectrum of sports from the speed/power end of the continuum on up to the marathon. Like the athlete the coach also learns through deliberate practice, through repetition and trial and error. You learn in the trenches, not from textbooks or in a laboratory. You learn form your mistakes and your successes.

Modern society and conventional wisdom in training has dulled our instincts. The key is to unlock these instincts and allow the body to solve movement problems the way the body was designed to function. It is essentially what children do in free play when unrestrained by adult supervision and burdened by having to do the movements correctly. Today even at the highest levels of sport coaches are creating robots. Movement is not paint by numbers, it is an expressionist drawing, it is not a classical music aria, and it is jazz riff.

We need to get away from reductionist thinking, stop breaking movement and exercise into its smallest parts in hopes of producing a moving flowing working whole, it won’t happen. It will only happen if there is a quantum approach, an approach that focuses on the big picture and connections. This is where sport science has failed us. In the rush to publish and the desire to show statistical significance we have become so reductionist in our thinking that we fail to see the forest for the trees. Focusing on Max VO₂ or trying to isolate the internal oblique and transverse abdominis, while very neat and clean in the lab just do not transfer to the performance environment. We must understand scientific concepts but they cannot restrain us. Coaches and athletes lead innovation in training and technique, not scientists. Science needs to measure an isolated component in order to conduct “valid” scientific experiments. I understand that those are the rules of the game for the scientist, but outside the lab in the real world of performance the rules are different. On the field, track, bike, or in the pool we do not have the luxury to isolate variables. Does that mean we should reject science and rely solely on practice and experience, absolutely not. As coaches we need to travel in both worlds. As a coach, statistical significance does not mean anything to me; I am interested in coaching significance and how it applies to making a particular exercise or training method more effective. Great coaches know the art and science. They know what canvas to paint on, what brushes to select, the brush strokes to use and how to blend the colors to achieve the desired result. In performance the essence is linkage and connections with all the pieces working in harmony. Training should reflect this and focus on muscle synergies and connections.

I am alarmed at the biased one-sided training regimens that I see being imposed on athletes today. If you are doing too much of one thing then you are probably not doing much of something else, it is a zero sum relationship. The result is a highly adapted athlete who is fully adapted to that one component being trained. To thrive in the performance arena demands the polar opposite, a versatile highly adaptable athlete whose training is not biased, but reflects the demands of the sport and the needs of the individual athlete.

These are not uncharted waters we are not going where no one else has gone before, the path is clear and the destination is obvious. That begs the question then, why with all we know and the supposed progress we have made are results so inconsistent?  Why are preventable injuries at levels never seen before in sport? We need to take a different approach. Look back at what worked in the past. Look at those people who are producing consistent reproducible results today. We need direction, definition and leadership, not marketing and hype. We need to recognize and acknowledge the problems and address them with practical concrete solutions. To achieve this we need to shift the focus back on people, not facilities, equipment and training methods. Coaching is a people profession, people working with people to raise performance levels. We must do everything possible to raise the standard of coaching.

I hope this stimulates you to help me to define the field of athletic development. We can change and we must change or we will go the way of the dinosaur. I implore you to take another look at what you are doing and go out and work to build highly adaptable athletes that can thrive in the competitive arena.

I wrote two or three years ago. I came accross it yesterday when I was working on a project. I think the thoughts expressed are more relevant today than when I wrote it then.