Functional Path Training

Doping - Ignore it and it will go away

These two statements from two of the track & Field governing bodies regarding the information implicating other athletes that came out of testimony at the Treavor Graham trial.

Lamine Diack, president of track’s international governing body, in a conference call with reporters Thursday, noted the eight-year statute of limitations on doping offenses.

Jill Geer, spokeswoman for USA Track & Field, said in a telephone interview: “The things that have been coming to light over the past several years have primarily been events that occurred four to ten years ago. Our current athletes are trying to remain focused on their present and their future.”

These two statements speak volumes about why there will always be a problem. The governing bodies refuse to confront the issue. They chose to hide behind statute of limitations and legalize. As far as USA Track & Field -What happened to their zero tolerance policy? Conveniently forgotten? If there was ever was an organization that needed to clean up their house it is USA Track & Field. They are afraid to go after the drug coaches. They have ex- athletes serving on development committees who were banned for doping, what message does that send? These organizations really do not want to clean up the sport, they want the scandal to go away so they can continue to run their Roman circus freak show and keep pushing those records higher, faster and longer. The ultimate bottom line is there is too much sponsorship and TV money at stake for them to take a stand.

GAIN Apprentorship

We are just one month away from our first Apprentorship program. It is a very good group, there is still room for one or two more people if you contact my right away. We will not have a program in December; I am only going to do one per year each June. Because of the amount of follow-up necessary with each group for the following year to do two per year would be very difficult.

Yesterday

I started working with the Venice (Florida) High School Baseball team. We did a few basic tests, taught the coordination phase of the warm-up (I use that that to evaluate basic movements’ and aptitude for fundamental motor skills) and then taught a couple of 3D stretches. The coaching staff is committed to a systematic approach for a whole year, just like girls volleyball, this is the only way I will work teams, there are no quick fixes. This will be a fun project. I would have preferred to do a full Athletic Profile on them but I did not have the help to do that, so I will build the steps of the profile into the teaching progressions. The first three weeks will be devoted to establishing a routine of good training habits and learning all the progressions. Once that is accomplished then we will be able to effectively train. The goal is to train better baseball athletes. I will keep you posted on their progress.

Yesterday was our last workout of this phase with girls volleyball. Now we go indoors and start to transition to much more volleyball specific training. I will have them for 30 to 45 minutes after two hours of summer volleyball from June 9 until the first week in August. We also will start with a new group of incoming freshmen. That is always a challenge because now I essentially have four training groups. Thank God for Dr. Harabedian's PE 30A class at Fresno State in 1964. I am glad a I paid attention. Training session management is such an important part of effective coaching. I do not see this taught or addressed anymore.

Shake, Rattle and Roll

Everywhere I have been the last three months I have seen commercial vibration machines. I see them in therapy and I see them in training.  These commercial machines usually have three or four settings with a vibration range from 30Hz to 60 Hz. The inexactness of these ranges is like trying to perform brain surgery with a butter knife, not very exact and dangerous. When you ask the million dollar question of the people that have them – What do you with the machine? How do you use it? You get amazing responses like – It makes them feel good before work out or the classic one – We use it for recovery. Recovery from what? Just like evaluating any mode or method of training I always ask myself the following questions: What is it specifically supposed to do? Can I measure that improvement or at least see it? Why does it work? How does it work? When is it best to use it? In what context should I use it?  Last but not least, with whom is it most appropriate to use? Certainly the concept of vibration is well researched, but the application is not. Much of the early research on vibration was done and continues to be done on the harmful aspects of vibration in industrial settings and in space flight. I think it is necessary to get beyond the guru endorsers and study what is really happening and how this mode is best used. Some of my colleagues have had good success in using for flexibility, especially at ankle. They also are also quick to add that the gains are short lasting; the research seems to substantiate this. My other concern is the cost. This is an expensive machine that allows one athlete use it at a time. Not very time efficient. I figure that for the cost of two of these machines you could hire one coach! Remember if the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything becomes a nail. Try using a body blade. It vibrates and it is self regulated. Perhaps too simple simple because there are blinking lights are alarms, just the feedback from your body.

GDR Doping

If you missed it, be sure to watch the PBS "Secrets Of The Dead" episode entitled:  "DOPING FOR GOLD."   http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/ I have read all the books, but to see the images and hear the interviews made the depth and magnitude of the systematic doping in the GDR even more unbelievable. In many ways this resembles the Holocaust, there are many people who were involved in it who still will not own up to their involvement. The scary part of all of this is that this stuff is still going on today. If anything it is more pervasive because the monetary stakes are even higher.

Peter Callahan – State Champion Miler

Approximately eight years I had the opportunity to consult for one year with North Shore Country Day School in Winnetka, Illinois. Patrick McHugh, the Athletic Director brought me in three different times during the year to do staff development and work on up grading their physical education and athletic program. Patrick is also the track coach and as you know track and field is my passion so we connected because of our mutual interest. We speak and correspond on a regular basis, in fact Patrick will be attending the Apprentorship program. Two years ago Patrick told about a boy who had come out from basketball and run some great times as a freshman. The way Patrick spoke about this boy and the times the young man ran with no background intrigued me. He played basketball again his sophomore year and ended up 2^nd in the state in the mile. This year he decided to not play basketball because of a recurring foot problem aggravated by planting and cutting. Up to this time the young man had probably never run over thirty miles a week. The traditional approach would have been to take advantage of the opportunity of no basketball and pile on the miles. Patrick and I talked about it and my advice to him was train him like an athlete not a distance runner. So they did. He did tons of circuit work modeled after the Seb Coe workouts from the 1980’s. I will have to check with Patrick but I do not think ne ever exceeded thirty miles in a week. Oh by the way North Shore does not have a track. Actually a great advantage because the majority of the stress workouts were done on grass. Here is Patrick’s description of the race: “The pace in the 1600m goes out slow. Everyone looks for Thompson or Peter to take the lead and neither of them want it. Thompson eventually takes the lead and coast through 400m in 66 and then hits 800m at 2:15. Peter is right on his shoulder. Sure enough he starts moving with 600m to go and Thompson starts opening up a gap. Peter hits 1200m at 3:22 about 5m back but Thompson is starting to increase his lead. Peter struggled in the Prelims from 1200m to 1400m against a weaker opponent so this was the point of the race I was most worried about. Coming onto the back stretch Thompson had increased his lead to 10m and seemed to be starting to pull away. About halfway down the back stretch the lead stopped increasing. Peter started slowly closing the gap. He hit the 1400m mark at 3:52.9 and then really started moving. He caught Thompson with 100m to go and flew by him. The announcer described the race this way “and with a tremendous burst of speed, Callahan has taken the lead!” Peter runs a 27.4 last 200m and a 58.2 last 400m and wins by 2 seconds. I haven’t seen a much better finish by any high school kid ever.”

Congratulations to Peter and Patrick – Tremendous accomplishment and a great illustration of following the functional path.

Chicago Tribune article:http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/highschool/cs-25-prep-track-sidemay25,0,6606829.story Chicago Sun Times article http://yourseason.suntimes.com/othersports/966022,052208btrstate.article

Adding an Exercise

I saw a real intriguing exercise the other day that got me thinking about the process I use to include an exercise in a training program. First I ask myself the following question: Is it want to do, nice to do or need to do?  Want to do is not good enough. If it is want to do it goes in the want to do file for future reference. If it is nice or need to do then it must fit in the context of the sport. It must fit the athletes. It must have the ability to progress both into and out of the exercise. Then I ask myself does it replace an excise that is currently in the program? Is it a better more effective exercise? If it is not superior then I will not add it to the program. Over the years when I have forced an exercise into a program without following this criteria it has been either ineffective or a disaster. I know that over the life of this blog I periodically come back to context. The more I observe programs and evaluate my own work the more important context is to the development and implementation of an effective program.

Edward O. Wilson

Last night on the PBS program NOVA (One of my all time favorite television programs) the subject was Edward O. Wilson. The title of the program was “Lord of the Ants.”

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/eowilson/
Wilson is scientist from Harvard who gained fame for his study of ants and his theories of animal behavior that he derived from his observation of animals in nature. He is the founder of the field of Sociobiology. My first exposure to him was through his book Consilience, where he discusses methods used to unite the sciences with the humanities. He defines Consilience, as the synthesis of knowledge from varied fields of human endeavor. He is the consummate big picture thinker. The program was fascinating and very thought provoking. He is definitely someone I hope to be able to meet sometime. His current project is a huge collaborative effort to compile an Encyclopedia of Life http://www.eol.org/ to catalog all the living species on earth. The plan is to have one page per species. The estimate is that there will be 1.8 million entries. At age 78 he has a passion for learning and teaching that is inspirational. This speaks to the point I was making on yesterday’s blog about the younger generations. He has every right to act as if he knows it all, but he is driven to learn, share ideas and educate. He is a great role model for us all.

Words of Wisdom from Johnny Carson

I saw this quote this morning and it resonated with me. For those of you under 35 Johnny Carson was a masterful comedian and social commentator who had a late night talk show that preceded Leno and Letterman. When I was in college we would watch Johnny Carson's monologue every night. This quote was so typical of his one liners. I have been thinking a lot lately of the difference between my generation, the so called boomer's, and the generations that have followed. I am going to post more on this in the context of coaching and teaching. There is a big difference that I can't quite put my finger on yet. The clinic I attended this past weekend and some interactions that I had in England have made think about this. Meanwhile enjoy the quote.

If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.- Johnny Carson

De La Salle High School Football

A couple of years ago I picked up a book called One Great Game by Don Wallace, it was about a game about De la Salle High School from Concord California against Long Beach Ploy high school from Long Beach California. The account of the De La Salle program left me amazed and wanted to know more. For those of you that don’t follow it De La Salle owns the record for consecutive wins at 151 games. I also saw them on a nationally televised game against a far superior team and they were amazing with their quickness. A year or two later I found another book on a year with the De La Salle program When the Game Stands Tall by Neil Hayes, a man named Mike Blasquez who was their athletic trainer and conditioning coach figured prominently in the book. This last weekend I met Mike Blasquez who is now the head strength and conditioning coach at University of California Berkeley. We went to dinner and talked for three hours on training. The two things that stuck the me the most about what he did at De La Sale was that the incoming ninth graders spend a year acquiring what I call foundational strength, the ability to handle and control their bodyweight. The second thing was they continued to work two to three days a week in-season and continued to do significant speed development work in-season. It is always fun to meet professionals like this; you bet I am going to watch the Cal programs because with this man’s influence they certainly will be more athletic.

Constantly Learning and Sometimes Amazed

This past weekend I attended a clinic where I learned that something that I have been doing for my 39 years of coaching is wrong! I learned that warm-up is now outdated and that I need to do movement prep instead. I learned that all warm-up does is raise the temperature of the body. Naturally I was taken aback. I am always open to new ideas and I continually challenge myself to learn and improve, but this was a bit much. Let’s get something straight, warm-up is warm-up, movement prep as I see it presented and executed is an implicit part of warm-up. You must warm-up in a systematic, sequential and progressive manner. In fact warm-up may be the most important aspect of the whole workout. It is your bridge from your everyday activities to the mental and physical rigors of the workout. Warm-up does not stand alone; it must match up and dovetail with the objective of the workout, it must be carefully choreographed and sequenced so that it seamlessly flows into the actual workout. Forget movement prep and warm-up, it has worked well for a long time.

The Reset Button

Anyone who has worked with computers quickly realized the importance of the reset button. If we recognize it so quickly with computers why don’t recognize the need with athletes in training? Yes as weird as it may sound each athlete has a reset button. That reset button consists of a training module, a training activity or even a particular workout or recovery method that gets the system back in tune with all cylinders firing. It some respects this is the art the coaching. Learning each athletes reset button requires observation and monitoring of the whole athlete not just a few measureable physical qualities. If you work to find you athletes reset button you can rest assured that your training will be more targeted and productive.

Kelvin Giles Comment on the Female Athlete

Kelvin Giles sent me the following excerpt from one of his manuals after reading the last post on the female athlete:

The following information illustrates the differences between the male and female during these ever-changing periods of maturation. It must be pointed out that these are simply differences and in no way should anyone think that this means that we treat the female athlete differently to the male athlete. They can train hard and they can adapt to all the physical, psychological, technical and tactical facets of their chosen sport. They can be exposed to and reach the highest standards in attitude, commitment and discipline. The differences should be viewed as being subtle and should be treated respectfully but not used as an excuse to lower expectations. Without personalising this issue too much I have been honoured to coach several world class female athletes to Olympic and World Championship heights and in each case my approach was no different to that with the male athlete. In each case their mental toughness, discipline, ability to tolerate high intensity work and their total lack of complaint when things got inconvenient and adverse were exemplary.

Go to Kelvin’s website http://www.movementdynamics.com for more information. Also read the article on his website about coaching Generation Y, it will make think.

Shoulders of Giants – John Jesse

I just obtained a copy of Wrestling Physical Conditioning Encyclopedia by John Jesse. Paddy Mortimer was gracious enough to send it to me in exchange for an East German book th  at I have that is out is out of print. This book is awesome, full of great practical information. You are probably asking who is John Jesse? John Jesse was an expert on strength training, injury prevention and rehabilitation from Southern California. He went to USC, where he was a contemporary of Peyton Jordan. I think that he worked with Gene Logan of Logan and McKinney Serape Effect fame. I was first exposed to his ideas in an article my high school football coach gave me an article he wrote in 1964. Over the next sixteen years I read everything he wrote that I could get my hands on. Sometime in the late 1970’s, the exact year escapes me, we shared the podium at The Runners World Sponsored National Running Week Symposium. We spoke on Strength Training for Runners. What an honor to share the podium with him. He passed away sometime in the 1980’s and frankly I lost track of his work until the late 90’s when I was going through my library and some files and found a gold mine of his material. I did not realize how much of an influence his ideas had on me. He was preaching tri-plane work in the late 1940’s. Big emphasis on rotary work, a surprise to the gurus of today who think invented rotary work. His training made extensive use of dumbbells, swing bells and body weight movements in addition to traditional lifting movements. If you can obtain any of his books they are well worth reading. His ideas are very contemporary; he was a man ahead of his time. The older I get and the more I coach the more I realize that we are all traveling paths blazed by pioneers like John Jesse. It is almost trite to say that we stand on the shoulders of giants. His work was more the norm rather than the exception in his day. Sound methodology based on good pedagogy grounded in science. We need more John Jesse’s today.

Perpetuating Myths

Last night I read an article that will appear in the New York Times Sunday Magazine on Sunday May 11 called “The Uneven Playing Field” by Michael Sokolove. It is an excerpt from a book called “Warrior Girls: Protecting Our Daughters Against The Injury Epidemic in Women’s Sports.” When I read the article last night I was taken aback. My first reaction was shock, then disgust and then anger. Read this excerpt and I will follow with my thoughts:

Girls and boys diverge in their physical abilities as they enter puberty and move through adolescence. Higher levels of testosterone allow boys to add muscle and, even without much effort on their part, get stronger. In turn, they become less flexible. Girls, as their estrogen levels increase, tend to add fat rather than muscle. They must train rigorously to get significantly stronger. The influence of estrogen makes girls’ ligaments lax, and they outperform boys in tests of overall body flexibility — a performance advantage in many sports, but also an injury risk when not accompanied by sufficient muscle to keep joints in stable, safe positions. Girls tend to run differently than boys — in a less-flexed, more-upright posture — which may put them at greater risk when changing directions and landing from jumps. Because of their wider hips, they are more likely to be knock-kneed — yet another suspected risk factor.

Sure there are physical differences, but the more we accentuate them the bigger they will be. Today the young female is severely short changed because of the constant stream of information like that presented in this article. Unfortunately this is what the parents, coaches and the girls themselves read and believe.

To a certain extent the next paragraph is true:

This divergence between the sexes occurs just at the moment when we increasingly ask more of young athletes, especially if they show talent: play longer, play harder, play faster, play for higher stakes. And we ask this of boys and girls equally — unmindful of physical differences. The pressure to concentrate on a “best” sport before even entering middle school — and to play it year-round — is bad for all kids. They wear down the same muscle groups day after day. They have no time to rejuvenate, let alone get stronger. By playing constantly, they multiply their risks and simply give themselves too many opportunities to get hurt.

Why am I upset? Because once again we totally miss the point. Don’t set the bar lower because they are girls. Set the same expectation for training as the boys. Girls do respond to training. Come and see the Venice Girls Volleyball team and you will see girls with muscles. They train and work at it year around. They prepare to play, not just play the game and practice the skill. The girls who performed poorly on the Athletic Profile have specific remedial work to do. There are different training groups based on the specific training task that day, one size does not fit all.

Sure once past puberty females have a different endocrine hormonal profile than men, that does not mean they do not have the capacity to train and subsequently adapt to that training, it is not a fait accompli that they will get hurt. This whole article overlooks several key factors, not the least of which is the fact that in long term athlete development process the female athlete is victimized by a system that throws them into competition and skill development before they have the physical base of preparation. They over compete and under train and are coached by coaches that have no formal training as coaches and do not understand the needs of the female athlete. The system or lack thereof rewards the more aggressive girls who develop earlier and does not take into account the girl who not as aggressive. In addition there is an incessant search for athletic scholarships that causes the girls to over compete to showcase their talents.

There are some simple solutions:

         Improve the quality of coaching.

Limit the number of competitions a girl can compete in until physical benchmarks are achieved.

Institute daily mandatory physical education Kindergarten through twelfth grade.

Recognize that the female athlete must strength train year around.

All the BS about different landing and running mechanics is just that, pure bull shitake. Poor landing and running mechanics 99% of the time are due to lack of strength, the ability to handle their own bodyweight. You can blame lack of core strength, whatever that is, but it is really a lack of strength throughout the entire kinetic chain. There must be a daily investment in strength training as part of warm-up that includes exercises that are mindful and proprioceptively demanding. Training is a year around proposition, not just something you do six weeks before the start of the season for thirty minutes three times a week. The answer lies in commitment to a consistent athletic development program that encompasses the lifespan of the female athlete. Seven year olds beginning to play should have activities that challenge balance and proprioception coupled with strength oriented movements that require control of body weight in multiple planes.

We do not need more articles like this. We need more practical high quality information in the hands of the parents; coach’s and teachers so they can be more aware and better prepare the girls for the rigors of training and competition.

Comings and Going

Congratulation to my friend and colleague Gary Winckler who is retiring as the Head Women’s Track Coach at University of Illinois. Gary will continue to coach his post collegiate athletes and devote more time to work designing and making western saddles.

Congratulation to Phil Lundin, another friend and great coach, who is leaving University of Minnesota to take over the Head Track and Field Coaching job at St Olaf College. He is returning to his roots at the Division III level. I know this is something that Phil has contemplated for quite some time, I was glad that he was able to do this. Minnesotas loss is St Olaf’s gain.

Dean Benton is leaving the Leicester Tigers to return to the Brisbane Broncos in a new position as Performance Director.

These guys are three great people and professionals; I want to wish them all the best in their new endeavors. I hope that each of you along the way in your careers have the opportunity to associate with professionals like this.

Functional Path Training – A few Thoughts

What seems to be emerging more and more for me as I gain experience coaching and I watch and evaluate training everywhere I go is that so much of what is done is “mindless.” It is just work, the athletes seem to just go through the motions, they are not engaged. I really think that is why a balanced approach to training that created athletes that are adaptable is the way to go. If I just sprint or I just spend time in the weight room then I will become adapted to those environments and fully adaptable to the demands of the competition that I am preparing them for. Folks we need to challenge the athletes mentally and physically to get better. You can’t just do workouts, you must be in the workout to give yourself a chance to achieve excellence.

Catching Up

I have been traveling so much lately I am trying to catch up with myself. The trip to England was quite good. The First two days I was at Loughborough University presenting a seminar for The FA to Fitness coaches of professional teams, there were sixty coaches in attendance. Presenting in that environment is never easy because people often do not want to hear the theory and the why, they want to get to the what. Therefore the theme of the two days was “Stuff.” My basic point is that everyone does stuff, in the past six weeks I have literally seen training stuff all over the world. There are the same ladders and hurdles, with the same drills mindlessly reproduced. My thesis is that “stuff” without the why, what, how and when is just that “stuff.” That is not good enough. I hope that I got my point across. The next day I put on a different hat and traveled to Manchester to do a demonstration of a product in development for a company I am consulting with. It was very interesting monitoring the practice and visiting with the fitness coaching staff there. Friday and Saturday I was able to combine business with pleasure and visit my good friend Dean Benton and his lovely wife in Leicester. Dean is now the head strength and conditioning coach for the Leicester Tigers England. I was able to observe two training sessions and individual session with a player. (See pictures) Dean does an excellent job, he has had to work hard to change the culture of training from an overemphasis on strength training to a more balanced program. While I was there Dean was offered an opportunity to return to his old team in Australia, the Brisbane Broncos, as Performance Director. He has accepted and will be returning to Australia. I am looking forward to visiting him there

 Saturday Dean facilitated a meeting with Michael Snelling, English Rugby Team Senior Team Physiotherapist. We spent about four hours discussing hamstring injuries, prevention and rehabilitation. Michael had done a brilliant presentation at the conference a couple of weeks previous so we used his notes from that as a starting point. He is a real sharp dude, who really stimulated me to think. He also gave a ride to Heathrow so I was able to pick his brain further.

I always come away from weeks like this excited and over stimulated. Getting back to reality after weeks like this is always hard, especially when the first morning you wake up and the blog is gone. Reality check! Got back and got one session with my Venice girls last week. They are AWESOME – all of you should have the opportunity to work with a group like this. They followed every workout to the letter. This is a special group of young ladies. Yesterday was testing and now we start a plyo block. I can’t wait for the workout this afternoon.

A Functional Path™ Manifesto

My journey on the Functional Path began many years ago as a search for secrets, just like any young coach I was looking for that 2% that would give me the edge. After traveling down many one way dead end streets I began to realize that there were no secrets, no one answer. I realized that I must take care of the first 98% in order to be able to do anything with the last 2%. When I discovered the Functional Path approach I realized that this was a path well traveled. I was quickly able to stand on the shoulder of many giants who had traveled the road before with great success.

The road on the path begins with a definition of function as integrated, multidimensional movement. With that as foundation functional training is defined as training that incorporates a full spectrum of training methods, designed to elicit optimum adaptive response appropriate for the sport or active being trained for. A spectrum incorporates a broad range of related values, qualities, ideas and activities. Just as with the spectrum of light certain training methods are visible and other invisible.

The characteristics of Functional Path™ training are:

No system of the body is emphasized to exclusion of another, all systems of the body work together synergistically to produce smooth efficient movement.

No one method or physical quality becomes an end unto itself.

Each athlete is a case study of one; each athlete brings something unique to the table.

In order to be considered functional, an exercise or training method must meet all of the following criteria:

Multiple Plane

Multiple Joint

High Proprioceptive Demand

The Work Must Be Mindful

The goal of all this process is to develop Athleticism. Athleticism is the ability to execute athletic movements (run, jump, throw) at optimum speed with precision, style, and grace in the context of the sport or movement being trained for.

Effective Functional Path Training™ respects that there are three movement constants that are continually manipulated. Those constants are the body, gravity and the ground. In order to optimize the function of the body we must recognize muscle synergies and train movements not muscles. We must recognize that we are training connectivity through unity in movement that is integrated not isolated.

The ultimate goal is build athletes that are adaptable to any athletic demand they face in training or competition, not athletes that are adapted to one method of technique. In order to achieve this we must give the athlete increasingly difficult movement problems to solve. Obviously this is contingent on mastery of fundamental movements. Without a sound foundation of fundamental movement skills it will be impossible for the athlete to progress to more advanced sport skills without greater risk of injury and performance errors. 

Traveling the functional path is a very challenging endeavor, you must constantly think about why you are doing what you are doing, and when you are doing it. Be sure to have your destination clearly in sight at all times. Focus on the need to do activities that will produce results. Always be aware of where you are spending your time. Is what you are doing sport appropriate, is it preparing your athletes for optimum results in competition?

I am looking forward to having you join me on this journey on the Functional Path. There is much territory still to be explored and challenges to be met.

Functional Path™ Training Rules

 

In order to travel effectively on the Functional Path there are some basic rules of travel that must be followed

Ø Have a Plan, Execute It, and Evaluate It

Ø Build the Complete Athlete

All systems work together

Train all components all the time - Use It or Lose It

Ø Always Train Fundamental Movement Skills Before Specific Sport Skills

Ø Train Sport Appropriate - You Are What You Train To Be

Ø Build the Athlete from the Ground Up

Ø Train the Core as the Center of the Action

Ø To Be Fast You Must Train Fast

Ø Build a Work Capacity Base Appropriate For Your Sport

Ø Train Toe Nails To Fingernails

                        Train Movements not Muscles

                         Train Multi Joint & Multi Plane Movements

Ø Training is Cumulative

Win the Workout

New Look, New Home, Same Philosophy

Due to circumstances beyond my control (Still Unexplained) my blog was removed from Blogger on Monday morning. Because of this I have switched to Typepad. Nothing will change except for the fact that I will scrutinize the posts more closely and not allow the type of discourse that was was beginning to creep in. This is a blog for professionals who are interested in exchanging and sharing ideas in a sane civilized manner. There is no room for personal attacks or guruism. I want to reaffirm the philosophy and goals of the blog. This blog is about and for you the reader in order to share ideas and stimulate thought. For me it is a labor of love, a change to get feedback and a daily stimulus to creativity in my coaching and life.  I will work to keep the tone positive and I expect the same from the participants. Personal attacks on posts will not be tolerated. Anonymous post will be deleted. Please clearly identify yourself and include your email. I am looking forward to having you join me on a regular basis on this site.