This course kicks but for any coach or trainer that has to work with clients and athletes dominated by the demands of their lower body.
Monday, September 13, 2010
PICP Level II (Lower Body Structural Balance)
09-13-2010
Last night at the Danish training center they held and inter league soccer match that saw a large crowd make their way to the Stadium. It was pretty cool to be here for that, and to see the crowds come out like you would enjoy in the USA at a college or professional football game. We went into the restaurant under the stadium and watched the game that was actually being played on the field over our heads! After the game came to an end we were somewhat surprised to see the Patriots vs Bangles game come on the main televisions for the remainder of the evening. American football is quite popular here from what we can tell and they enjoy pools and betting on the game like we do in North America.
The PICP II course outline is designed to teach the student coaches how to evaluate the functional structural imbalances of the lower body, and the muscles that are not functioning correctly. In doing so we will then go through the exercise progressions of the step-up, split squat, lunge, squat, calves, posterior chain. This course is an intensive five day work load that teaches the progressions of the functional exercises of the lower, in doing so the coach should leave PICP II with an understanding of not only the things took look for in the lower body but also how to program the correct sequences of exercises to ensure proper health and progression of the athlete. In level two, the instructors also go over the functional tests to determine the proper balance and function of the muscle, and they teach the student coach how to identify inconsistency in the athletes muscle through tests and screens.
This course kicks but for any coach or trainer that has to work with clients and athletes dominated by the demands of their lower body.
This course kicks but for any coach or trainer that has to work with clients and athletes dominated by the demands of their lower body.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
The Day Of Reckoning PICP Level One
09-12-2010
Without Strength we have nothing....
It is amazing the amount of information that quality coaches can pass to the student during the course of 24hr of lecture and practical. During the second day of PICP 1 we looked at the main lifts for upper body structural balance and the remedial lifts as well. Beyond that we then looked at the variations and progressions of the main lifts (7 main) and the (4 secondary). This set us up for a full day of lifts, and these lifts can return an athlete from injury or progress them beyond their current goals via proper balance of the body. I will link the seven exercises and their correlating links from a published Charles Poliquin article. But I will not tell you myself specifically myself what is in this article. Let me send caution, this is the article that outlines what is covered in PICP 1, but the actual information outlined during this article is but a piece of what we are covering during the three days. This article is the upper body structural outline, but there isn't any information regarding the progressive variations of the lifts or the 12hr of lecture covering annual periodization and program design. Interesting note, the Poliquin Strength Institute has developed a program design software to accommodate the coaches that are coming through the PICP education system. With in this software there are 1200 variations for the triceps extension alone! This obviously takes you beyond the information that is outlined in this article.
The interesting thing that I have been witness to since arriving at the Idraettens Hus (house of sport) is the basic efficiency of how everything works together. At times it seems that there may be a hindrance because they adhere to schedules of time, for example at a hotel the front desk was closed after 11pm at night until early in the morning. SO I assume that you might be shit out of luck if you locked your self out of the room in the late evening. Other interesting notes about the location that we are staying at involves the celebration of former Danish athletes throughout the entire building. In fact there are a number of head casts and stone carvings of former great athletes, in fact there are poster of former NCAA athlete Joachim Olsen on the walls around the center.
Well that is it for this blog, tomorrow we begin the PICP Level II which is five days in length and covers the structural lower balance.
Without Strength we have nothing....
Well that is it for this blog, tomorrow we begin the PICP Level II which is five days in length and covers the structural lower balance.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Day one Denmark PICP 1&2
09-10-2010
We are in beginning the lecture series that goes with the PICP 1 course book and for those that have not read into or studied the PICP system it is a comprehensive and progressive education system that teaches coaches the proper way to prepare an athlete or client. The system requires the student to not only progress their education but also their practical application of the knowledge that they have acquired. It is the only system of education in the world that promotes the practical application of material before allowing students to continue their education. This insures that the coach is actually able to take an athlete from A-Z, and in doing so it separates the Poliquin Strength Institute from all other certifications that currently exists. For example, as you progress through the coaches levels you will also have needed to develop athletes at advancing levels or have shown equivalent motivation and understanding in the private sector. I think that this has a two fold effect in your personal development and successes as a coach. One you will have the experience and intrinsic feedback of problem solving as you work with athletes, and two the interaction of the coaches with one another within the world of PICP and BioSig. This is probably the most important, because a lot of these coaches that are becoming your new colleagues are connected to sport and athletes all over the world! You may be sitting next to a coach during lecture that works with The Hungarian National Speed Skating Team.In fact, during this PICP level 1 we had the company of two countries short track speed skating coaches, one of which was an athlete in Torino.
During the introduction of PICP in Copenhagen we were representing 30 coaches and trainers from eight countries, and a countless number of sports.
For more information about attending a PICP course or a BioSignature seminar
contact www.Charlespoliquin.com or call for information
Poliquin Performance Headquarters
42 Ladd Street, #109
East Greenwich, RI 02818
Phone: +1 401-398-7845
Fax: +1 401-398-7160
Email: info@charlespoliquin.com
For more information about attending a PICP course or a BioSignature seminar
contact www.Charlespoliquin.com or call for information
Poliquin Performance Headquarters
42 Ladd Street, #109
East Greenwich, RI 02818
Phone: +1 401-398-7845
Fax: +1 401-398-7160
Email: info@charlespoliquin.com
The Trip from USA to Denmark (PICP 1&2)
09-08-2010
The trip from the US to Europe was my first and defiantly not my last. I flew from my home in NC and arrived in Copenhagen via Vienna Austria. The flight its self was average but not bad, we flew a 767 offered by Austria Air and other then the true lack of arm, leg and even nut room for that matter took only 7hr 55min from wheels up to wheels down. Vienna airport was awesome, it was a combination of old and new with a ton of up scale shopping right in side the terminal. When we deplaned the 767, it was directly onto the tarmac which was awesome because I was born in the seventies and every once in a while we need to be reminded of that. The last flight was directly into Copenhagen and Denmark is beautiful, the combination of old world architecture and incredible new world design make it a sight for the eyes as you navigate through the city. And bicycles, everyone and I mean everyone rides bikes in the city of Copenhagen. It was incredible to see women dressed for a date or fine dinner and riding their bike to the location! No thunder thighs in this culture that is for sure, skinny jeans and a ten speed. The cost of things is a little high but the quality is also at the same level, unlike the walmart bakery in the US the bread actually gives off an odor of awesomeness as it bakes in the corner shops.
The food it all produced daily so the sandwich that looks like its a display model is actually edible.
Once I arrived met with Charles, Andre Benoit(head instructor) and john Connor(Irish Strength Institute) we took a cab to the IDRAETTENS HUS which the national training center for a number of Danish National sports as well as the home of Brondby Stadium and Soccer team. The facility is awesome, and like all of this part of Europe its very efficient from the building being all motion sensors to the electricity in my room only being active when my door key is the slot.
I have lifted twice already in the weightroom wihich an Eleiko Sponsored facility and look forward to six more sessions before I depart next week. I will update more as I continue this week.
Talk soon.
Once I arrived met with Charles, Andre Benoit(head instructor) and john Connor(Irish Strength Institute) we took a cab to the IDRAETTENS HUS which the national training center for a number of Danish National sports as well as the home of Brondby Stadium and Soccer team. The facility is awesome, and like all of this part of Europe its very efficient from the building being all motion sensors to the electricity in my room only being active when my door key is the slot.
I have lifted twice already in the weightroom wihich an Eleiko Sponsored facility and look forward to six more sessions before I depart next week. I will update more as I continue this week.
Talk soon.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Incorporating the Nervous System into Your Training
03/26/2010
Incorporating the Nervous System into Your Training
I have been thinking about this a lot recently and there are some changes occurring in the mindset of a handful of coaches that want maximize the potential of their athletes, and the success that they will have on the field.
When you think of training, either it be specific to the weight room or activities on the field. it breaks into a number of sections based on the energy systems that are required to fuel the activity. If for example you’re training longer distance or muscular endurance then you are on one end of the spectrum. If you are training high intensity and low volume you are on the other end of the spectrum. We know that volume and intensity are inversely related so your ‘true’ maximal effort is much different than your perceived maximal effort based on exhaustion or fatigue, and this is where I have become quite curious in recent months as to the effects of training on the nervous system. The nervous system is basically the chemical/electrical system that controls the signals that are racing throughout the body influencing everything from heat regulation, digestion and sleep to muscular contraction, locomotion and coordination. Based on the stimulus that is presented to the body at any given moment in time dictates what is going to happen and what the reciprocal response to that stimulus will be. For the sake of my curiosity I want to look at the idea of not only nervous system stimulation through training but also the idea of nervous system fatigue.
Since I started athletics it has been pounded in my head that nervous system stimulation as a thrower (hammer) would correlate to long throws in competition and nervous system fatigue would equate to short throws or an inefficient movement pattern. When we look at the first scenario we know that training the nervous system to be dynamic or reactive is more about establishing systems that target the fast twitch muscle type IIA-B fibers as the primary source of work as apposed to their slower oxidizing cousins, the type I slow twitch fibers. To do this we focus on rate of execution, intensity of movement in relationship to an established 100 percent maximum and duration of activity. By training within certain parameters we establish a system where the majority of work is within a certain scope of field or window. For example if I wanted to train the squat to effect the nervous system it would be low repetitions at a weight that will maximally activate the motor units of the selected body parts, but also with enough rate of acceleration as not to be working outside of a specific time under tension or period of work which would start to move away from one energy system towards another. So the actual stimulation of the nervous system is not all that difficult, in fact it’s easy. The problem that I am stuck on is what exactly is the meaning of nervous system fatigue? What does it mean to fatigue the nervous system with your training? I have been told year in and year out that my nervous system was fatigued or shut down when I wasn’t moving as well as I should or on meet day if the ball wasn’t flying as far as it should. In fact there are a lot of athletes that are training around the country and the coach will talk about training in terms of it being nervous system fatiguing and when the body begins to unload or recover the performance will respond accordingly to the rejuvenation of the nervous system. But, what if you don’t understand that the nervous system is affected by more than the weight in your hand or the training routine that you follow? In fact your nervous system is the trigger from the brain to the body to move the muscle and perform the act, but it’s not the structure that actually makes the movement. The movement is the product of muscle, connective tissue and bone. So if you have a fatigued nervous system isn’t it really a fatigued electrical/chemical system? The nervous has become weakened because the body has exhausted its stores of neurotransmitters and it no longer is able to fire the signal as efficiently as it once had. If this is the case it wouldn’t simply be fatigue, but rather a number of odd disturbances through out the body from spasmodic cramping to sleeplessness and even depression and irritability. Things that are quickly rectified through nutrition and rest, but if your diet is garbage and your rest is nonexistent then no matter what type of training you are doing your nervous system will be fatigued. In fact, even when you are peaking you are going to be tired and broken down if your body is having difficulty regulating its neurotransmitters production and function. If you have an acetylcholine deficiency it wouldn’t matter what you were doing in training or who you were trained by… You’re screwed. So when we are telling athletes or we are being told that we are suffering from nervous system fatigue, more times than not we are actually suffering the ongoing effects of muscular fatigue and stress as related to the volume of work that is being preformed during training sessions. Or we have started to develop adhesion in our soft tissue that is preventing the efficient moment of our bodies, but the consciousness of our fascial system is for another time. When you are actually training the nervous system to react, you keep the duration of the sessions short and the stress to the muscular system minimal. You are in a sense feathering the throttle continuously to ensure that you don’t blow the wheels of the car until you get the green light. So the next time that you have deep muscle soreness from a block of workouts that involved sub maximal speeds and inefficient rest times and inadequate hours of recovery before repeat exposures, stop and check to see the progression of your Parkinson’s disease before you start telling everyone that you have systemic depletion of neurotransmitters causing nervous system fatigue.
Derek Woodske
NC#09726
Incorporating the Nervous System into Your Training
I have been thinking about this a lot recently and there are some changes occurring in the mindset of a handful of coaches that want maximize the potential of their athletes, and the success that they will have on the field.
When you think of training, either it be specific to the weight room or activities on the field. it breaks into a number of sections based on the energy systems that are required to fuel the activity. If for example you’re training longer distance or muscular endurance then you are on one end of the spectrum. If you are training high intensity and low volume you are on the other end of the spectrum. We know that volume and intensity are inversely related so your ‘true’ maximal effort is much different than your perceived maximal effort based on exhaustion or fatigue, and this is where I have become quite curious in recent months as to the effects of training on the nervous system. The nervous system is basically the chemical/electrical system that controls the signals that are racing throughout the body influencing everything from heat regulation, digestion and sleep to muscular contraction, locomotion and coordination. Based on the stimulus that is presented to the body at any given moment in time dictates what is going to happen and what the reciprocal response to that stimulus will be. For the sake of my curiosity I want to look at the idea of not only nervous system stimulation through training but also the idea of nervous system fatigue.
Since I started athletics it has been pounded in my head that nervous system stimulation as a thrower (hammer) would correlate to long throws in competition and nervous system fatigue would equate to short throws or an inefficient movement pattern. When we look at the first scenario we know that training the nervous system to be dynamic or reactive is more about establishing systems that target the fast twitch muscle type IIA-B fibers as the primary source of work as apposed to their slower oxidizing cousins, the type I slow twitch fibers. To do this we focus on rate of execution, intensity of movement in relationship to an established 100 percent maximum and duration of activity. By training within certain parameters we establish a system where the majority of work is within a certain scope of field or window. For example if I wanted to train the squat to effect the nervous system it would be low repetitions at a weight that will maximally activate the motor units of the selected body parts, but also with enough rate of acceleration as not to be working outside of a specific time under tension or period of work which would start to move away from one energy system towards another. So the actual stimulation of the nervous system is not all that difficult, in fact it’s easy. The problem that I am stuck on is what exactly is the meaning of nervous system fatigue? What does it mean to fatigue the nervous system with your training? I have been told year in and year out that my nervous system was fatigued or shut down when I wasn’t moving as well as I should or on meet day if the ball wasn’t flying as far as it should. In fact there are a lot of athletes that are training around the country and the coach will talk about training in terms of it being nervous system fatiguing and when the body begins to unload or recover the performance will respond accordingly to the rejuvenation of the nervous system. But, what if you don’t understand that the nervous system is affected by more than the weight in your hand or the training routine that you follow? In fact your nervous system is the trigger from the brain to the body to move the muscle and perform the act, but it’s not the structure that actually makes the movement. The movement is the product of muscle, connective tissue and bone. So if you have a fatigued nervous system isn’t it really a fatigued electrical/chemical system? The nervous has become weakened because the body has exhausted its stores of neurotransmitters and it no longer is able to fire the signal as efficiently as it once had. If this is the case it wouldn’t simply be fatigue, but rather a number of odd disturbances through out the body from spasmodic cramping to sleeplessness and even depression and irritability. Things that are quickly rectified through nutrition and rest, but if your diet is garbage and your rest is nonexistent then no matter what type of training you are doing your nervous system will be fatigued. In fact, even when you are peaking you are going to be tired and broken down if your body is having difficulty regulating its neurotransmitters production and function. If you have an acetylcholine deficiency it wouldn’t matter what you were doing in training or who you were trained by… You’re screwed. So when we are telling athletes or we are being told that we are suffering from nervous system fatigue, more times than not we are actually suffering the ongoing effects of muscular fatigue and stress as related to the volume of work that is being preformed during training sessions. Or we have started to develop adhesion in our soft tissue that is preventing the efficient moment of our bodies, but the consciousness of our fascial system is for another time. When you are actually training the nervous system to react, you keep the duration of the sessions short and the stress to the muscular system minimal. You are in a sense feathering the throttle continuously to ensure that you don’t blow the wheels of the car until you get the green light. So the next time that you have deep muscle soreness from a block of workouts that involved sub maximal speeds and inefficient rest times and inadequate hours of recovery before repeat exposures, stop and check to see the progression of your Parkinson’s disease before you start telling everyone that you have systemic depletion of neurotransmitters causing nervous system fatigue.
Derek Woodske
NC#09726
Saturday, March 13, 2010
The Role Soft Tissue Work Plays in Recovery
The Role that “Soft Tissue Work” Plays in Success,
When you look at the cyclical nature of training whether it is for sport or personal fitness, you have to include the need for proper nutrition, rest and restoration. For the vast majority of people that train even at the highest levels of sport they often don’t complete the circle of key components along the way to maximize their training success. Some if not most active people will focus all their energy into the actual training and to a lesser but not forgot part nutrition. However, without the necessary focus on rest and restoration the other two aspects are often sacrificed or at least inhibited to the point that the training is simply a test in ones ability to swim against the stream.
I understand that there can be some confusion in the differentiation of rest and restoration as they seem to explain the same thing. However, we are looking at rest in terms of generalization. Sleeping is rest or restful but you may not be achieving full restoration as a product of your nightly slumber. I could also take a moment and lay quietly on the couch and this too may allow for some rest yet it may still not recover you from your activity. When we talk about restoration for the sake of this topic we are talking about the replenishing and recovery of the body systems that were taxed during the demands of your training. If you trained to a point of complete macronutrient depletion then you must make sure to recover the systems through diet and nutrition. If you have been competing at a high level of not only excitement but adrenaline then you must return your nervous system from a sympathetic to a parasympathetic state. If you have caused yourself a lot of physical trauma from repeated strain or physical stress you will have to unwind and release the tonus from the soft tissue of the body.
For the sake what we are looking at today in terms of restoration we really want to stop and focus on the idea of returning the nervous system to a restored existence following the trauma caused from the programmed training system that you follow. Your bodies are organisms of balance living between worlds of stop and go, requiring the proper balance of both to reach maximal potential If you continue to live a high stress life through work and family followed by a workout even though good for you mentally it’s taxing physically and the body beings to run its stores even lower. The sympathetic nervous system becomes dominate for the majority of the day, the very same system that dumps adrenaline into the veins to fight the tiger or hunt a bear. However, if there is no chance for this system to recover restoration and inevitably rest cannot take place. When the body stays sympathetic for too long of a period of time the system becomes disrupted not allowing for the proper rationing of nutrients and hormones creating a negative cascade effect to all other systems of the body.
However, there is hope with the addition of soft tissue work ranging from traditional massage to neuromuscular therapy. Using the previous techniques a board licensed therapist will be able to slow the cascading effect of stress and the negative effects that it has on not only your training gains but also your life gains. The regular incorporation of massage will lower the sympathetic state or fight and flight response you may be having to the world (even if you are not fully aware of this) to a parasympathetic state or a rest and digest state of existence. By bring order to the body and balance to the system the body can start to focus on its ability to prepare for the next stressor that it will have to deal with, and it will be able to deal with it efficiently because it has been properly restored.
Until next time
Derek Woodske, B.Sc, LMBT, NMT
NC License #09726
When you look at the cyclical nature of training whether it is for sport or personal fitness, you have to include the need for proper nutrition, rest and restoration. For the vast majority of people that train even at the highest levels of sport they often don’t complete the circle of key components along the way to maximize their training success. Some if not most active people will focus all their energy into the actual training and to a lesser but not forgot part nutrition. However, without the necessary focus on rest and restoration the other two aspects are often sacrificed or at least inhibited to the point that the training is simply a test in ones ability to swim against the stream.
I understand that there can be some confusion in the differentiation of rest and restoration as they seem to explain the same thing. However, we are looking at rest in terms of generalization. Sleeping is rest or restful but you may not be achieving full restoration as a product of your nightly slumber. I could also take a moment and lay quietly on the couch and this too may allow for some rest yet it may still not recover you from your activity. When we talk about restoration for the sake of this topic we are talking about the replenishing and recovery of the body systems that were taxed during the demands of your training. If you trained to a point of complete macronutrient depletion then you must make sure to recover the systems through diet and nutrition. If you have been competing at a high level of not only excitement but adrenaline then you must return your nervous system from a sympathetic to a parasympathetic state. If you have caused yourself a lot of physical trauma from repeated strain or physical stress you will have to unwind and release the tonus from the soft tissue of the body.
For the sake what we are looking at today in terms of restoration we really want to stop and focus on the idea of returning the nervous system to a restored existence following the trauma caused from the programmed training system that you follow. Your bodies are organisms of balance living between worlds of stop and go, requiring the proper balance of both to reach maximal potential If you continue to live a high stress life through work and family followed by a workout even though good for you mentally it’s taxing physically and the body beings to run its stores even lower. The sympathetic nervous system becomes dominate for the majority of the day, the very same system that dumps adrenaline into the veins to fight the tiger or hunt a bear. However, if there is no chance for this system to recover restoration and inevitably rest cannot take place. When the body stays sympathetic for too long of a period of time the system becomes disrupted not allowing for the proper rationing of nutrients and hormones creating a negative cascade effect to all other systems of the body.
However, there is hope with the addition of soft tissue work ranging from traditional massage to neuromuscular therapy. Using the previous techniques a board licensed therapist will be able to slow the cascading effect of stress and the negative effects that it has on not only your training gains but also your life gains. The regular incorporation of massage will lower the sympathetic state or fight and flight response you may be having to the world (even if you are not fully aware of this) to a parasympathetic state or a rest and digest state of existence. By bring order to the body and balance to the system the body can start to focus on its ability to prepare for the next stressor that it will have to deal with, and it will be able to deal with it efficiently because it has been properly restored.
Until next time
Derek Woodske, B.Sc, LMBT, NMT
NC License #09726
Performance Journal Two
02-01-2010
The Olympic Games have come and gone and for the most part this was one of the better games that I can remember. I say this in reference to come from behind victories and athletes laying it on the line to produce personal best performances and world records. I have become a big fan of a number of athletes from all countries not just my home country of Canada. In the 500m speed skating sprint, I was happy to see Canada win but over the course of the Games I have become a fan of Apolo Ohno and his ability to win and stay with his game plan even in the moments of chaos and confusion. I know that he certainly wanted to win an eighth metal and I wish that he had, but I understand the rules of speed skating and the contact followed by the fall during the final 500m race was a tough break. Other athletes that blew me away were Rochette, Von, and White. Let’s not forget the Canadian Hockey Teams! I am from the Kootenay Valley of British Columbia and there were a number of Kootenay Athletes on the Gold Medal Men’s Team. The Winter Olympics was a success in my book from the different athlete’s ability to adapt to less then desirable weather conditions to emotional stress and loss both on the field of play and off.
I know that there were a lot of people in the city of Vancouver and perhaps around the nation that wanted to use the Olympics as a point of attention to climb up on their political soap boxes to speak out against poverty and joblessness. I full heartedly agree that both topics are of the utter most importance throughout Canada and the United States. However, the celebration of sport and athletics has been a moment of solidarity of not only people, but Nations from around the world and it is the Olympics that bring together these people in the name of healthy competition even in the midst of great turmoil. I can understand the woes and fears of the current social collective in regards to economic down turn in North America, but the Olympic Games are not only an investment in world relations but future economic stimulus for the people of the host Country. It may not be tomorrow or next week that we see the benefits of putting Canada on display for the world but there will be benefit. People have to understand that we have been through the lows of economic progress before in North America and as a Continent we will come back; if anything people should see what others are capable of through the medium of sport. If you believe in yourself and the strength of those that are around you, you can overcome setbacks and heartbreak to achieve your goals. Imagine if you will, a whole country of people that share the same belief in their country and themselves as an Olympic Athlete perusing a goal, and in this case a medal. Getting up everyday with the belief that they are going to achieve greatness and even though life can step up with all that it has to offer in the way of adversity they continue to push forth the way Rochette has done this games uniting not only the heart of Her Country but of the World.
Performance Journal One
1-18-2001
Welcome to the website!
Let me be the first to thank you for stopping by and checking out my site, it has been sometime since my last online post. A number of years ago, three and a half I believe? I wrote an online blog that was geared towards the world of track and field and athletics. It started as a way to pass a couple hours a day back in 2003 while I was training fulltime for the hammer throw at the national and international level. The blog was a part of a larger website that I created called Gashead.org. For those of you that may not be familiar with this website, it was your typical muscle-head site with lots of training info and T&A for the viewers plus nutritional reviews and some cutting edge concepts taken from the headlines of the industry. What there wasn’t a lot of was bulls**t in by way of empty concepts or wasted energy towards the flavor of the day training. Simply, the website wanted to and succeeded at promoting the sport in its rawest and most honest form.
Like I have said in the past and I continue to promote to this day, there is no such thing as bad training thoughts just bad training actions. You have to open your mind and think about the ways to improve performance through the systematic and productive use of yourself and the resources available. If you are not sure of the answers that you are finding then find another source and compare to make sure that your time training will be best spent doing something productive. With that being said, you also have to ask yourself if your training is suffering due to the fact that you simply don’t have enough sack or guts to push through the barriers of your mind and your body. Are you simply looking for the straightest path from point A to B, without accepting the reality that change is a slow and at time stubborn process?
The most frustrating set backs that I witness with athletes and a citizen trainee in the human performance world is their simple lack of direction in their workouts. They simply don’t know why they are here, or what they are supposed to be doing. The gym is a place that they go, but why are they really going? What are the reasons that they are going for? And if they know the reasons, do they have any clue how to reach those goals or expectations? These are all areas that seem to elude the majority of fitness driven individuals. “Don’t think that you can go ask a trainer and they will make it all better because they also fall into that same majority.”
You have to set forth a plan for physical and performance change even if all you want to do is improve your overall health. You have to understand what is causing your poor health in the first place, how your forthcoming training is going to affect your goals and whether or not your goals are even attainable. For example, if you are 42 years old with a body fat level of 39% you might not want to start with a goal of back squatting 500lbs in the next six months. However, you can set goals that put you on track to achieve that goal over the next 36 months as long as you are structurally healthy and you don’t come from a chlorinated genetic pool.
Until next time…
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