Functional Path Training

Training Program Evaluation

Many people have asked for my opinion and/or an evaluation of various programs that are commercially available and very popular. Since I have not been able to observe these programs first hand for an extended period of time and in the spirit of maintaining a positive tone on this blog I thought it would be better to give you the general principles and ideas that that I look for in a program. From this you can draw your own conclusions. These criteria are the same criteria that I use to evaluate and continually upgrade my own training programs. • What is the philosophy of the program? • What are the goals and objectives? • Does it result in being adapted or adaptable or are you creating one trick ponies? • What is the context of each exercise and workout? • Is there a clearly identifiable progression? • Does it train movements and do the movements connect? • Is it manageable? Is it time efficient? • What is the big picture? Is it training or just mindless work that gets you tired? • Is it principle driven? • If it is norm based, where did the norms come from? • How is progress determined? What are the criteria for progression? • Does it travel well or do you need certain equipment or a trainer to implement it? • Are there injuries? If the answer is yes, is there a discernable pattern of injuries? • How much does it cost to be certified in the program? • Are various methodologies appropriately used? For example are power cleans done to fatigue with an Olympic bar? • Is it based on one series of exercises or machines? • Is it mindful or mindless? • Is it age appropriate? • How are people evaluated before beginning the program? • How are intensity and volume determined? • Is it one size fits all or is it individualized? In summary evaluation of an exercise or training program must be dispassionate and objective. Try to eliminate bias. I have the advantage of being able to draw on years of experience, so I have seen what has worked and what has not over the years. Remember that a hammer can be a very effective in the hands of a skilled craftsman or it can be very destructive if used improperly.

Accumulation of Training

I so often hear I do not have enough time to do that. I was thinking about the accumulation of work, little things like remedial work, work on flexibility or a technical refinement. It does not have to be huge amounts of time. Take five minutes a day and do something consistently and see where it takes you.

5 minutes a day

X 5 days a week = 25 min

X 4 weeks = 100 min

X 12 months = 1200 min= 20 HOURS!! – Almost a full day

Make time your friend, not your enemy. Use it effectively and you will give yourself a chance to get better!

Some Questions

What does everybody in a team sport have to do the same conditioning? Why do hockey players have to test the power clean?  Why do American football players have to do a mile run test? Why is the bench press such an important lift? What does heart rate really tell you? Why do you need an aerobic base? Why is lactate bad? Does lactate really cause soreness? Why do pitchers ice? Why do female athletes have to hurt their knees more often than boys? Why do we have so many pulled hamstrings today? Why doesn’t the player who has the heaviest max in the squat always have the best vertical jump? Why is the forty so important for football? How many cones do you touch during a football or soccer game? What is agility? Why does training always have to make you tired? Is there such a thing as game speed? Why don’t we have required physical education from Kindergarten to twelfth grade? Why can’t we figure out that physical activity and cognitive learning go hand in glove?

The Great Youth Sports Training Con

Parents are lining up right this moment to find the training program that will assure that Johnny or Susie will get faster or stronger so he or she will get that athletic scholarship. Pardon my cynicism but parents are being ripped off. They are paying personals trainer up $50.00 to $100 an hour. Do the math at 3 hours per week times four weeks that works out to be $1200 a month. Let pretend they just do that for the summer so for three months that is $3600. Then they are paying for a hitting coach, a pitching coach or a special finishing coach in soccer. Meanwhile all these trainers are feeding the parents and the kid’s fantasies about how good Johnny or Susie will be. The standard line is that if you keep bringing Johnny or Susie to me I can assure you a scholarship or maybe even a pro contract.  Do you honestly think that they are going to tell the parents that Johnny or Susie are awful and they can’t walk and chew gum at the same time? No way, they are pulling in the dough; this might be one of the best con games going right now. Parents save your money and you will be able to pay for Johnny’s and Susie’s education. let them play and  have fun.  

Training Secrets

Are there training secrets? I think that is a fair question to ask when you see all the hype about the different training secrets available for exorbitant prices available for purchase. Honestly in my 39 years of coaching and a few more beyond that trying to be an athlete I have not found any secrets. What I have seen is that those who claim to have secrets are closed minded people who depend on hype and smoke and mirrors to convince people that they really know something that no one else does. It is even better if you claim to have the Russian or East German training secrets and you call everyone comrade. There are no secrets, training demands structure, progression, directed work that understands the interaction of the body, gravity and the ground. Here is the free “secret” model for reverse periodization (another meaningless term) Get Strong, Get Fast, Get Fit, Get Specific, Compete. You learned that right here free. What do you do with it, that is up to you, no secrets, I am not coaching the people you are coaching. One size does not fit all. Use your knowledge and creativity and run with it. The secret is that simplicity yields complexity.

Selective Abstraction

When I read this passage in Ric Charlesworth’s book the other night this really struck a nerve with me. “Selective abstraction is the fault of seeing what we want to see – that which fits our preconceptions or appetite rather than being an accurate or true reflection of what is going on. Seeing what is, not just what we want to see, is crucial if we are going to make good judgments.” (P. 56 Shakespeare the Coach) It caused me to reflect on how often I have done this. So often we are trapped by our own experience that we miss the obvious. I know in training I have fallen into the habit of looking at certain things and ignoring others. I must shift the paradigm and be more aware of the big picture. One solution to this is to bring in outsiders to observe and analyze workouts. I am in the process of having someone review all the Venice volleyball workouts since January 07 to see if have missed anything or emphasized the wrong thing. I am going to do the same at the Apprentorship later this month. We are going to study programs and concepts and look at them with different eyes.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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