What You are doing Wrong!

Today I want to talk about the training style that is revolutionizing sports performance training.  This can be simply call the movement philosophy.  The goal of the movement philosophy is as simple as it names states, MOVE.  That is what athletes do and it is how we need to train our athletes.  Get your athletes moving in order to make them better and make sure they emphasize proper movements.  Move, move, move is what good sports performance coaches are doing with their athletes and today I will discuss the philosophy behind the movement style.

Sports are about movements and how well does an athlete move.  We want to move quicker, more explosively, more efficiently and more athletically.  Everything about sport is how well do you apply movement.  Running, jumping, stopping, throwing and turning are all movements.   These are the requirements of sport and as a sports performance coach we need our athletes to be better at these movements.  Improving these movements will improve our athleticism and our game performance.  We will be better at the thing that is the reason why we are training.  That reason being sports. We want to better at sports and we want to win.  In order to win we need to be more athletic and we become more athletic through improving our body’s abilities to move.  Movement is the key to being a better athlete.

Notice how I didn’t mention curl, extension or crunch.  These are not the movements of sports.  These are the names of isolation exercises that decrease our body’s ability to move smoothly and athletically. For athletes we never want to decrease athleticism.  That goes against everything we are trying to do as sports performance coaches.  Doing the exercises mentioned above we are moving slowly and isolating a joint so that we can control the joint and feel the “pump” within our muscles.  We are training our muscles during this type of training.  The problem for athletes with this type of training is that sports are not about muscle.  As stated above, sports are about movement.  Your muscles affect your movement but not in a slow, controlled and isolated manner.  Instead we want our full body involved in our movements and we want this to be quick, explosive and powerful.

This is the principle behind the movement training style.  Athletes need to focus on the movements of their sport and train those movements in order to maximize the results they want while playing their sport.  With movement training, we will improve our athleticism first and our muscles will improve as a result of this approach.  Gone are the days of ab crunches, bicep curls and leg extensions.  They have been replaced with standing presses, medicine ball throws and jumps.  Movement is the key and will improve us athletically with each of these movements and our muscles will also benefit.  This is the new way to train athletes and our athletes are improving at a faster rate and seeing greater gains in athleticism and performance.  As an athlete, start focusing on your movements and your game will improve as a result of your new training approach. 

For more info and education on sports performance training, be sure to check out our group page on Facebook, TrueFitness Pacific Beach. You will learn valuable lessons to be your best and improve your athleticism.

Anyone in the San Diego area be sure to drop in at our studio at 2949 Garnet Ave. 3^rd floor, Pacific Beach, CA.  We would love to put you through our workout.   Please feel free to call or email Spencer Aiken,CSCS  (858) 240 2334 email: info@truefitness.biz

Article written by Spencer Aiken, CSCS, CEO, TrueFitness

Heads Phone In and Tune Out

Working out has become too much of a singular activity for too many people and I think that needs to change for the betterment of fitness and progress. Too many people go to the gym and never talk to anyone. They put on their headphones and tune out the rest of the world. This is actually slowing the progress of gains for most people. The gym should not be a place to tune out the world but instead should be a place for everyone to approach it with the attitude that we are all here to help each other get better. T.E.A.M.- Together Everyone Achieves More is a better way to approach the set up of a gym and a workout. When there is competition, camaraderie and friendship the gains come quicker and the enjoyment is increased. When everyone supports one another then a positive environment is created and this help with the overall enjoyment and atmosphere of the gym. A healthy supportive gym will produce greater gains and increase member retention. It will also increase member accountability and frequency of attendance. When we have a healthy support structure then we are more likely to continue with our healthy pursuit and when everyone approaches a gym as a TEAM then we increase this likelihood. A gym should not be a place to tune out from the rest of the world but instead should be a place where like minded, health minded and fitness fanatics come together to make a better healthier world and promote friendship and healthy lifestyles. Its time we start to promote a TEAM approach to the fitness model. Stop allowing the gym to be a place of ego, self obsession and detachment. Promote a team and family and watch how the gains and enjoyment of your team increases.

Evolution of Sports Performance Training

The evolution of sports performance training is finally here – and as athletes, you should be ecstatic! Finally – it’s about improving your ability to play your sport, not just about developing big muscles and flexing your biceps. Sports Performance Training is now about training to become the best athlete possible.

How do we apply this evolution to individual athletes? Well, the first step in designing a program for a particular athlete is to evaluate the movements that are specific to his sport. (For example, a hockey player trying to take a shot will rotate through his core frequently.) Next, we need to consider the speed and angle of the movements so we can replicate these during our workouts. (For example, a track & field athlete must be able to run consistently in a straight line, while a wide receiver must be able to cut & change direction quickly.) We also need to be aware of which movements occur simultaneously or in quick succession when designing a customized strength training program. (If we consider the wide receiver again, he needs to be able to jump to catch the ball and then immediately turn and sprint to the goal line.) Lastly, a sport-specific strength training program will address duration: how long will the athlete execute these movements, and what other stresses play a role? (Our football player only has to run for a short time, but he needs to be able to ward off defenders, while a distance runner has to be able to execute repetitive motion for a longer duration.) Sports-specific movements, their speed, angle, sequence & duration: these are all sport-specific components consideration we must include in our workouts in order to improve athletic performance.

While specific motions may differ slightly from sport to sport, there are many consistent movements across a variety of athletic endeavors: running, jumping, turning and throwing, to name a few. These actions are executed in a similar fashion across many sports, so we can start to formulate a workout based around these movements. Of course, some variation must be applied for specific results, which is why we also consider individual needs, goals and position-specific movements, too.

The speed of the movement is also important since we need to get accustomed to moving at game speed. If we consistently train using slow, controlled movements, we never allow our bodies to get used to the impact and stress on our joints that come with working at full speed. We must train our body to perform at game speed, which can only be achieved by training in the same fashion.

Movement angles are critical considerations of a customized strength training program because we must train our bodies to function in these same positions. For example, in the scrum, players must stay bent over and drive horizontally using strength in their legs; we want to replicate that body position in order to maximize the benefit and specificity for our athletes. So, doing sled drives will help improve our lower body power and strength to help maintain the proper stance and drive more powerfully during the scrum.

In sport, we never use just one joint; instead we ask multiple joints to work together to carry out full body movements, while using leverage and coupling of movements to our advantage. So, we must take into account what joint motions occur together in order to craft a training program that mimics these actions. We also need to consider the sequence of movements to ensure they are trained properly and become natural motions for our athletes.

Sports performance training is finally changing for the better. We now know that in order to improve sports performance, we need to train athletes like athletes. The ability to train movements of a sport in order to be better at the sport is becoming the gold standard of sports performance training. We no longer believe in isolating muscle for the benefit of growing the muscle. We now care about improved performance and effective muscles trained properly through sport-specific movements and our athletes are the beneficiary of these new beliefs.

Article edited by Clarissa Constantine, FitToPublish.com

Become quicker, faster and a better athlete with this drill

I HATE Bicep Curls

I HATE bicep curls! There I said it. I hate bicep curls and I don't care who knows and what they say or believe. The biceps serves minimal if any purpose in sports performance and doing bicep curls is not even the best way to train the biceps for sports performance. There is NO athletic movement that is ever performed where curling a heavy weight from your pelvis to your chest will help to determine victory. NONE! NADA! ZILCH! ZIP! Try to think of one and you will not come up with ONE. NOT ONE! So why do so many so called "sports performance coaches' and personal trainers include bicep curls so often in their workouts with their "athletes". How may videos do I have to watch where a fitness professional will say "we are increasing athleticism" or "creating athletes" and then watch them do biceps curls? Whether you do them with a barbell, dumbell, Twist Smart Toner, TRX or any other product it simply comes down to that you are not training to be athletic and your misguided knowledge is giving our industry a bad name. Doing bicep curls are simply for vanity and to have big arms. People, athletes included, want to look good and doing bicep curls is believed to help with that endeavor. Even then though there are better ways to go about getting big biceps. Pullups and Chinups are great exercises and teach body control along with actually working the biceps in a sport manner while also drastically improving our grip strength. As see it there are 2 solutions that will work. First is train more effectively and do exercises that can actually improve your athleticism and sports performance. Second option is for fitness people to stop calling themselves "sports performance coaches" and calling their clients "athletes" since they are neither improving sports performance or training like an athlete. I know neither of these is realistic but in a perfect world it would happen and there would also be regualtion in the fitness industry. Until then I will speak my mind about the fitness industry. That is all I have for today. Whether you agree or disagree is your right but that doesn't mean you ARE right.

Train Movement, Not Muscle

Sport is about movements and reaction to other movements. It is about making sure your movements are quick, powerful, compact and explosive. They need to be precise and the movement needs to be effective. Sport is all about movement. How effectively do you move your body will generally determine whether or not you win at sport. How fast is your movement? How quick can you stop your movement? How powerful is your movement? How athletic is your movement? This is the basis of sport and is the basis of training to be better at sports. In sports performance training the training needs to be about improving movement and maximizing the efficiency, power, strength, coordination and explosiveness of movement. Sports performance training is NOT about training a muscle to grow or to contract better when pumped so that it looks good. Nothing about sports is about looking in a mirror to judge how the muscle looks. Looks have nothing to do with sports and training muscles is all about looks and vanity. Athletes should be too focused on winning and how to go about accomplishing wins to worry about how they look in a mirror. Muscles are reflected in mirrors. Movements are reflected in sports and the person with the best movements will win. It is simply that simple. As a sports performance trainer we train the movements. I let personal trainers train their bodybuilding clients in front of mirrors looking at themselves and watching their muscles grow. This works for many people and they should be complimented that they are in the gym working hard trying to better themselves and attain a healthy lifestyle. But that does not mean that I accept bodybuilding for athletes who need to be faster, more powerful and quicker. If you want to be more explosive then doing bicep curls simply will not help you achieve your goal. So stop focusing on the size, feel and look of your muscle and start applying movements to your muscle and allow them to become more athletic so that you can become more athletic and then you will truly start to become a sports performance athlete.