What Are You Training?

https://vimeo.com/113978368
 

What Are You Training?
This is a question I want you to ask yourself each and every time you design an exercise for your client. I remember when I first started as a personal trainer.

It was around the time that the Bosu and stability balls made up 90% of our training. I remember the best trainers were the ones that could come up with the most creative exercise using as many pieces of apparatus as possible. You would have an athlete standing on 1 leg on a Bosu with a single arm cable row with a 1/4 squat mixed with internal hip rotation with your eyes closed!

Now its just the opposite. I find the more I know the less I have my athlete actually doing. We master techniques before adding complexity. We master movement and posture before we add resistance. We master load before we add speed. My favourite exercises and pieces of equipment today are basic. Make sure you aren’t mixing your training goals and philosophies to make your sessions more creative. If you are training balance, train balance, if you are training strength train strength but don’t do strength training on unstable surfaces.
 

Sport Specific
If your athlete has specific needs to fill in some weaknesses in their sport you may have to get creative. Lets say your athlete is a basketball player who can only effectively cut to the right.

You do your assessment and find a weakness in their left gluteus medius and the recruitment patterning is off when they try to extend their hip. Once you have addressed the low level correctives using the 4x4 system or other corrective protocols you get them up and start some drills to teach them how to cut right.

You can do this breaking down the desired movement with exercises that together will build the movement we are looking for or you can train it as a whole. Now add resistance to the movement to see if it will hold up under stress. If we have good quality movement we can add speed. This is just an example of the process I would take to analyze, assess, correct, teach and reinforce athletic movement. Sport-specific training doesn’t have to look like or mimic the sport to be effective. My golf specific exercises look nothing like golf but help create some of the most powerful athletes in the game!

Watch the film and see how you do on the What Are You Training Game.

Enjoy! Coach Glass