“What does my program offer an
individual that others do not?” This is a question that fitness professionals
should constantly be challenging themselves to answer. If the answer is,
“Nothing” then maybe it’s time for you to either kick your continued education
in the ass or start searching for a new profession. With so many people trying
their hand at the profession nowadays, it’s vital for one to not only be
proficient coaching traditional strength training, athletic performance,
movement mechanics, etc. but also to be unique and constantly evolve. Trying to
understand where the profession of human performance is going and not just
where it’s been is a never-ending task, and always will be, so if you’re not up
to the task you may as well get comfortable with becoming obsolete. There are
plenty of coaches in my area who can prescribe a deadlift, squat, a variety of
Olympic lifting, and some single joint supplemental work, but if that’s all you
think is important to developing an athlete for long-term health and growth you
may be sorely mistaken. Or worse, paying premier money for a less than premier
program. In order to put together a well rounded performance program for an
individual a coach must ask questions, seek out the answers, and lastly PUT IN
THE HOURS. That being said, today I’d like to talk about a few important
variables you may be missing out on in your training program.
Assessments
I’m not just talking about a
vertical jump test and a 40-yard dash. I’m talking about a battery of tests
that allow the fitness professional to first conclude what a particular athlete
should absolutely NOT be doing in the weight room, where they may have structural/functional
issues, whether or not they need to be addressed and what the best route to fix
those issues might be. With all of my clients I use the Functional Movement
Screen to first determine movement quality and core positioning/function. I
then break down into smaller exams like the Thomas test to determine
tightness/laxity in the core musculature and shoulder flexion exams to
determine mobility and functional issues in the thoracic spine and glenohumeral
fossa itself. After the functional and structural assessments are finished I
follow up with a par-q form and a short questionnaire to help me determine why
I found what I found. THEN and ONLY THEN, do I give a damn about how high you can
jump or how fast you can run?
Preventative Maintenance
The lack of preventative
maintenance in a program will generally come hand in hand with the negligence
of assessments. If you don’t take the time to figure out what might be going on
with your client, it’s awfully difficult to design a program to prevent a
problem that might arise down the road. This is an extremely important variable
for a performance program and is really not that difficult to include. It can
be something as simple as a shoulder care program for throwers or a few daily
exercises for an individual to help correct tightness or instability in a certain
pattern. It can usually be implemented in six to eight minutes a day, but can
be cataclysmic to the long-term development of a client.
Foam Rolling
There are a lot of scientists in
the human performance realm (who are a lot smarter than I am) arguing recently
about what exactly foam rolling achieves. Whether it’s myofascial release,
fluid distribution, musculature activation, or wizardry, I don’t care. All I
know is this: it makes my athletes feel great and when they neglect it, all
those small nagging injuries and pains seem to start presenting themselves
again. Look, there is nothing sexy about foam rolling, and most meat heads will
roll their eyes at you when you spend a chunk of your training on it. I tell
all my clients that foam rolling is a lot like eating vegetables, it’s not
going to make you big, strong and fast, but if you choose to avoid the process,
you may never stay healthy long enough to get as big, fast, and strong as you
would like to be. So swallow your pride and roll around the floor for a little
bit every single day, you tattoo filled meat monkey.
An Individualized Warm Up
When I took my first job as a
performance coach at the local gym in my hometown, we had one warm-up for
everyone. We’d line the athletes up and move them through the same dynamic
warm-up day in and day out. I’m not saying it was the wrong way to do things, I
just think it left a lot to be desired. We had plenty of athletes who were
dealing with mobility issues (that we would have no way of knowing about until
it was too late, BECAUSE WE DIDN’T ASSESS) that a cookie cutter dynamic warm-up
just wasn’t going to solve. Some athletes have so much joint laxity/instability
that putting them through stationary static stretching will only exasperate their
problems, so a dynamic warm-up is perfect for them, get their tissue
temperature up and get them going. On the contrary, there are some athletes
(mostly males) whose mobility in certain area sucks, so taking some time out
each day to work specifically on those areas in their warm-up can be well worth
your time. You’ll have plenty of time to get them into a short dynamic warm-up
to get them warmed up.
Going Heavy
I’m a big supporter of safety first
and some athletes may refer to me as a “Technique Nazi” at times, but I’m still
no softy. Getting away from the 3 sets of 10 and 4 sets of 8 stimuli is more
important to me than you might think. I don’t agree with lifting to failure
every single day, but just like anything in life, if you aren’t willing to fail
(safely) in the weight room you’re never going to understand how to succeed.
Every 4 weeks my clients/athletes (who haven shown they’re ready) are
prescribed a “hypertrophy week” where we drop our sets and reps and move heavy
shit all over the place. Lifting heavy is the most effective way to simply get
stronger, and when you get stronger EVERYTHING IS EASIER. Anybody who would
like to argue that being strong doesn’t make most everything in your activities
of daily living easier. I’d love to hear it.
If you’re missing out on one or a
few of these methods in your daily training program, I would urge you to at
least give one or two of them a try. God forbid you find something out about
yourself you didn’t know yesterday and change your routine, right?
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