If you’re into positional breath work, trying to get people to tuck is usually one of the first things you do.
When you attend a seminar that shows you all these foundational activities (breathing exercises), they seem like they’d be easy to coach, since they’re being demoed on a coach.
However, we all know clients don’t take cues well. Especially the general population.
So if you struggle getting people to tuck correctly, this video is for you đ
What other coaching questions do you have??
If you missed my post on how I introduce the basics to brand new clients, you’ll want to head over to THIS BLOG, and watch me take my new students through their “first day”. 3 out of the 4 I had never worked with before! It gives you an idea of how I deal with people who have never done any type of positional work.
Going to a seminar and watching a coach take another coach through an exercise and expect you to recreate the same execution with your clients…
Good luck with that.
Do you know who take cues really well?
Coaches
Do you know who doesn’t take cues well?
Clients
A lot of coaches who want to be detailed and want to add a breathing component to their training, struggle to get clients to buy in or fall short when producing results that are meaningful for the client.
Is the root of their problem the lack of knowledge? Do they need more theory? do they need more courses where they sit and learn about the rib cage for 15 hours?
No! They need better execution, better coaching, and more realistic expectations.
Fortunetly, I’ve got a solution for all those needs đ
Even though they all have been active in the past/present, they have never been taken through my detailed coaching or any breathing exercises.
With these videos I want you to focus on a few things from a “new client” perspective”.
I want you to notice:
How I break down the activity. I start with one aspect of the breathing exercise and let them practice/fail, and I slowly get more detailed and add other cues.
How much I repeat what I say. exhale, keep exhaling, exhale, more….more exhaling, keep going. I’m not afraid to keep asking for a certain thing, and you shouldn’t either. Cue it until they do it.
How complimentary I am. For my friends and loved ones, I might seem like I have a cold distant personality, but for new clients, I’m the nicest most encouraging person on the planet. Let people know they’re doing a good job. At Enhacing Life, we take all aspect of training seriously…including breathing. Our new clients get a lot of praise for doing these things correctly.
How it’s not perfect. Detailed coaching doesn’t mean it has to be perfect. It means it’s always improving đ
Throughout the videos, you’ll also hear me talk to the new students. I want you to notice I don’t impress them with big words. If you’re dealing with interns or new hires (new trainers), you can’t start them off where you’re at. You’ve gotta give them the big picture, you have to start with practical information and keep it simple simple simple.
Disclaimer: these students took cues really well. Over the next few months I will be doing consults that will be recorded. My hope is for you to watch me fail and problem solve with people who are extremely difficult đ
I was seeing a psychotherapist last year who guided me through a meditation. During the breathing portion, he cued me to let my belly expand upon inhalation.
After the meditation ended, I asked him why he wanted me to push my belly out. He said pushing the belly out allowed me to breathe with my diaphragm instead of being a shallow chest breather. Better diaphragmatic breathing would tap into my parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest), and allow me to relax.
Little did my therapist know Iâm a breathing fanatic. My life might always seem like it’s falling apart and I don’t know what I’m doing from his perspective, but I got breathing retraining down pat. I ended up educating him like I do many people on what diaphragmatic breathing really is, and what it is not.
Spoiler alert: belly breathing isnât doing what most people think itâs doing, and people are not really chest breathers.
During respiration, you actually want your abdomen AND chest to expand. Your lungs are in your chest, not in your belly. Your belly already has a bunch of substance in there (organs), let the rib cage take the air.
During normal respiratory mechanics, the ribcage and abdomen should expand a complete 360 degrees to achieve adequate intra-abdominal pressure.
Belly breathing lacks this circumferential expansion, reducing intra-abdominal pressure, which can result in limiting movement options and performance in the gym.
Before we go any further, let’s go over what are normal mechanics of respiration, and what it is not.
THE Zac Cupples made an amazing 8 minute video for you all. It will get you a better understanding on what breathing should be and then we’ll get into some practical stuff that I know you’ll love.
If you’re coaching belly breathing, it’s okay to stop.
It’s 100% okay to let your clients know you’ve learned something new and you want to implement it.
When I first got into teaching breathing 8 years ago, I too coached belly breathing. I would put light chains on their bellies and got them to push against as they inhaled. Even though my intentions were always in my clientâs best interest, my lack of knowledge led to lackluster breath coaching.
If your intention is to stop your clients from being shallow breathers, tap into their parasympathetic nervous system, teach them how to chill out, and have them become better movers and more efficient lifters, belly breathing is not the way.
So as of today: RIP Belly Breathing.
Never again will you coach it.
I will teach you what you CAN start coaching and you will start helping your clients with wayyy more than just “breathing”.
Let’s say Zac’s video just went over your head. It’s cool. Breathing is complicated.
Let’s wrap your head around this stuff by showing you the big picture and giving you some actional steps to start getting good at this stuff.
If you want to change someone’s breathing, you have to start looking at the structure that surrounds the lungs.
When youâre trying to understand your main breathing muscle, your diaphragm, you must appreciate the position that the ribcage is in. And if thereâs something I look at a lot, it starts with R and ends with IBCAGE.
Trying to achieve diaphragmatic breathing by cuing a “belly breath”, “pooch the belly out” or “Let your belly billow out” would be like trying to open a door that is already open.
A door must be closed before it can be opened.
In order for you to take a breath IN with your diaphragm (Inhalation, Inspiration), it needs to come from a state of being OUT (Exhalation, Expiration).
In order for you to be ale to do what’s on the left, you have to come from being on the right.
Iâve put my hands on hundreds of peopleâs ribs. Some of the assessment findings stay pretty consistent with each person I look at . Even though everyone seems different from the outside, their thoraxâs keep telling me a similar story:
And Itâs telling me to tell you âSTOP COACHING ME TO BELLY BREATHE, Youâre fucking it up!!â
When you assess the rib cage, you can make some assumptions on what phases of respiration people are in and what phases of respiration they struggle getting in. In this post, we’re going to keep things simple.
Because in reality, people can present different breathing limitations all throughout the body. Today’s goal, is to get you to stop coaching your clients to belly breathe, or start coaching breathing in general, and start globally making clients better movers/breathers!
Once you have experience coaching the activities I will share below, you’ll be ready to take things deeper. Because it always goes deeper. Nothing about the human organism is simple. Remember that.
To not overcomplicate things, we’re going to say your clients struggle to achieve a position of full exhalation with the diaphragm in a domed position, where the middle is pulled up, like a parachute.
See how it looks like a parachute?
If it can’t dome/exhale, the diaphragm sits flat, in a position of inhalation (inspiration), which can be accompanied with numerous movement limitations, and what most people would consider âpoor postureâ.
Your muscles that you use to breathe in with are winning, but they’re not even winning a good way, like our President.
Your muscles that help you achieve a state of full exhalation are struggling and are not in a position of a lot of power. Like our coward corporate Democrats we have in office.
Your clients struggle breathing correctly, just like they struggle with other movements like flexing their shoulder or extending their hips. Fortunately, a little emphasis of it goes along way.
I’m very biased, but I think breathing is a movement more coaches should be paying attention to.
If you can’t perform another movement like hip extension, It’s easy to understand that limitation will be accompanied with problems on the training floor. Can’t extend hips, means they can’t lock out their deadlift without arching their back.
With breathing, it’s harder to make those connections, but I guarantee, if your clients suck and breathing in and out, it will definitely be accompanied with problems on the training floor.
You’ll see things like, limited shoulder motions that prevent upper body lifts from looking good, hips can’t extend so they feel everything in their back, ankle won’t bend and their squat looks like shit…you name it.
If you start appreciation breathing, you might start seeing alllll the annoying problems on the training floor magically disappear.
If you’re interested in how breathing can affect movement, the next video is perfect for you.
If programming constraints are taken away due to the quality of movement your clients can demonstrate, you can get these people STRONG no matter what their background is.
This is Josh. Two years ago Josh couldn’t do much without pain.
Josh can now deadlift over 300lbs and squat over 200lbs and he got there with the help of breath retraining.
Josh’s story repeats itself over and over, not just at Enhancing life, but at gyms all over the place.
Coaches who get deep into breathing, realize that it’s more than just breathing. It’s more than just putting people in 90/90. It’s more than just rehab.
This rabbit hole gets hated on all the time but the ones that get into it, are no longer driven by what other fitness professionals think, they’re more driven by the results their clients are getting.
Like Josh’s results. Josh was doing step ups last week with 100lbs on his back (safety bar), and he said “This feels so good!”.
The same Josh that said last year that he thought his knees were one day going to give out on him.
Appreciating breathing is a huge reason why he has progressed so much. Not the only reason of course, but it was definitely a big piece of the puzzle.
Now I hope youâre wondering, what should I do instead of cuing belly breathing? How can I help my clients breathe without overusing their back and neck muscles 20,000 times a day? How can I get my clients moving better and get them to become more efficient lifters?
Iâll help you get started đ
Look at the following exercises as activities that put your muscles in a better position to be a better breathing/mover.
The better you breathe, the more degrees of freedom your joints will have. More degrees of freedom means more movement possibilities!
Breathing sequence for all these activities:
Full breath OUT through the mouth
3-5 second hold at the end of the exhale
Inhale keeping the front ribs down vs belly breath. The cue of keeping the front ribs down doesn’t mean expansion is not allowed there. By cuing that, it allows for the expansion to be closer to 360, so you should see some movement in the belly, but cuing it to not expand tends to give you the outcome you want (360 expansion).
Once you have hours of coaching these exercises under your belt, you’ll be able to start digging deeper.
I didnt come up with ANY of this. This is just my interpretation of the things I’ve learned through REALLY smart people.
The two people you need to start following are Zac Cupples and Bill Hartman. If you keep asking yourself Why and How these are the guys that will help you figure out those answers. Invest your money on their courses/intensives.
However, you have to be a decent coach to even take their info and be successful with it.
Good coaching can’t be taught through a webinar or a lecture seminar where they only use one person to demo with.
April 27th & 28th 2019 The Trio: Lucy Hendricks, Dr. Michelle Boland, & Michael Mullin Day 1: Saturday with Lucy Hendricks & Dr. Michelle Boland, Fundamentally Sound: Coaching & Technical Mastery Hours: Five Total, 8am-1pm Day 2: Sunday with Michael Mullin, Circuiting the Rehab Training Model Hours: Five Total, 8am-2pm, lunch 11:30-12:30pm
Alex Kraszewski is a Physiotherapist working in Essex, United
Kingdom, who also holds a triple bodyweight Deadlift to his name. He’s here to
talk about how to better understand back pain as a fitness professional.
Back pain sucks. If youâre a human being or you work with human beings, chances are you or your clients have experienced back pain that varied from either a mild backache to being disabled by pain. Despite the huge advances in medicine, the number of people suffering with back pain is spiralling out of control, and we don’t seem to be much better at dealing with it.
In most cases of back pain (nearly 90%), there isn’t
a single source of pain. Scans and investigations might show disc bulges and
dehydration, arthritis and compressed nerves, but there are no guarantees these
cause pain. Relating pain purely to structure, without appreciating the bigger
picture, is probably what got us in this mess with back pain in the first
place.
Pain is influenced by almost everything in our
lives, and the biopsychosocial model helps us appreciate how all these inputs
can interact when it comes to pain. Stress, sleep, education and beliefs about
pain, how we move and exercise and many other things, all influence pain. No
one single thing causes pain, and if you make this assertion nowadays, the
internet will strike down upon you with more vengeance and furious anger than
Jules Winnfield.
Back
Pain often has a mechanical component
But just because pain is influenced by more
than how we move in the gym, that
doesn’t mean we shouldn’t value how we move in the gym, and under load. What’re
we’re doing at any one time (context) dictates what movement strategies would
be appropriate. To that end, we need to consider how motions, postures and loads influence the load an exercise exposes us to.
Take a 100kg/225lb Deadlift. The things that
will influence how, and where, that 100kg is applied to the body depends on;
Type of Deadlift used (Conventional, Sumo, Trap-Bar, etc) – Load
Positions used (neutral spine, more flexed or more extended) – Posture
The shape and size of the lifter (limb and torso length) – Posture
Movements used (interaction of the spine, hips and knees) – Motion
Volume of lifting (Sets & Reps, sessions per week/month?) – Load
And the result of these things include;
A more horizontal torso position (conventional deadlift) will
increase spine load compared to a more vertical torso position (sumo or trap
bar)
A more flexed or rounded spine position will load the passive
structures of the spine and increase spinal shear forces compared to a more
mid-range or ‘neutral’ position
More spine flexion for the longer-legged lifter with a
conventional deadlift, compared to a trap bar deadlift.
Using more spine motion and less hip motion will load the spine
more than the hips
More volume will increase spine load, regardless of form.
Exercise execution
influences load, but we can’t use this as the only way to decide if something
is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Konstantin Konstantovs made a reputation for himself by pulling
over 400kg with a round back and no belt
I’ll say that again. Over 900lbs with no belt and a round back. Go
back 10 years and the thought of spine flexion under this much load would’ve
broken the internet. Thankfully – we’ve moved on a bit since then.
Most of our clients aren’t mutants, so alongside
thinking about the way we lift, and
how it influences spine load, we also have to take into account the other
‘stuff’ too;
What does the rest of the training session and overall program
look like?
How much rest and recovery is occurring outside of the gym (think
stress, sleep, hydration, nutrition).
What does the rest of the week look like for motions, postures and
loads (office ninja, manual labourer, or crime-fighting superhero?)
How adapted to one
particular strategy of lifting is the client (is it a brand new way of doing
things, or have they done it for years without a problem?)
If there is a balance between the
way in which exercises are performed and what goes on in the rest of our lives
(load), and our ability to recover from these things (capacity), we will adapt
positively and get fitter and stronger. Injury risk increases when there is an
imbalance between the load applied and our ability to recover;
The first priority as a fitness
professional if pain or injury is reported is to have a healthcare professional
check it’s nothing serious. After that, the fitness professional is well placed
to identify the motions, postures and loads associated with back pain.
We don’t say causing back pain, because this starts to move into a
diagnostic and healthcare arena.
Back pain won’t have a clear medical
diagnosis a lot of the time, but a ‘movement diagnosis’ can be an important
factor to consider with a client’s pain. A movement diagnosis allows us to
consider the motions, postures and loads associated with pain, without getting
hung up on a structural source of pain.
Flexion and Extension Based Back Pain – A ‘Movement Diagnosis’ for
Trainers
One way of broadly categorising
back pain within resistance training is as flexion- or extension-based. As far
as the mechanical component of back pain goes, we are looking for whether a
client’s back pain relates to a flexion or extension motion, posture, and/or
load.
This doesn’t mean we ignore the
non-mechanical factors for pain, but it can identify exercise selections or
executions that may be part of the painful picture to make changes accordingly.
If we can do that, we stand a great chance of helping our clients reduce their
pain, and get back to crushing it in the gym, and in life.
Let’s say someone is performing a roundbacked
deadlift with a hip hinge that could do with better execution and is reporting back pain, we can lean
towards that person reporting flexion-based back pain. The reasons for this
might include;
The motion of spine flexion to extension to
complete the lift
The posture of
spine flexion under load
The load requiring control and resistance of spinal flexion
These factors are based on the way the exercise is being
performed, but don’t forget to consider how
much the exercise is being performed. Perfect technique doesn’t mean you’re
invincible to unlimited volume and intensity, or that your recovery outside of
the gym doesn’t matter.
If and when pain is present in this
scenario, we have a couple of options of
what to change;
Coach the exercise
in a way that changes the posture (round back towards more neutral spine) or
motion (more hip hinge, less spine motion) –
The Way
Reduce the load –
either the weight on the bar, or the volume of the exercise – How much
Change the
exercise (conventional block deadlifts, trap bar deadlifts or sumo deadlifts) –
The Way
We can apply this any exercise. Understanding
what could be contributing to back pain, and working around this, is developing
the ‘trainable menu’. This is way better than just resting and waiting for pain
to go away.
In the Complete Trainer’s
Toolbox, I take a deep dive into the variety of factors within exercise that
can influence spine loading, how to both modify exercise in the presence of
back pain, and how to help rebuild the client who is struggling with back pain
to get them back to their most loved and enjoyed activities.
The Complete
Trainers Toolbox is available for a launch sale pricing
for $100 off the regular price until Sunday February 17th at midnight. Get
Alex’s presentations, as well as an additional 15+ hours of digital video
content and 1.7 continuing education credits
When people find out I donât want kids, my fitness industry friends seem to understand more than others. A lot of them even share the same feelings than me about reproducing.
That might be because we see the world in a similar way. If you make a living on helping people be healthy, itâs hard to not look around and feel completely hopeless for our societyâs future. We are one brainwashed, overstressed, underslept, overworked, disconnected world, and itâs only getting worse.
Having kids in a world that keeps getting sicker, and the fight to be healthy gets harder and harder makes reproducing seem like an uphill battle.
Trying to advocate for your own health is a tough job, especially if itâs your actual career of choice. The health and fitness industry has enemies that constantly make it hard. They promote unhealthy behavior, they make candy cheaper than vegetables, and they pump misleading information that keeps the public in the dark.
It wasnât until 2016, the year I got into politics, that I found out those same enemies Iâd been dealing with for years in the fitness industry, were the ones funding politicians to push policies and bills that are leaving us with horrible health consequences.
And if youâre not dealing with corruption and greed, youâre dealing with uneducated politicians that donât know what it takes to have a healthy society. Their view on health doesnât go beyond conventional medicine, insurance companies, and misguided information. So even though their intentions are nothing but the best, like Bernie and Alexandria Cortez, their plan to keep people healthy, falls short.
Hoping to get the health and fitness industry involved in politics due to their level of education on the topic, I started talking about the need to get everyone politically involved, especially people like us (coaches) who connect the public to information they can trust.
I had a few people who supported my idea, but for the most part, I got reminded that getting political wasnât a good idea for my business, and/or for my online presence.
Being as stubborn as I am, I kept at it.
I kept pushing, kept digging deeper, and I kept seeking out people who could help me figuring things out. I was part of two worlds I felt needed to be desperately combined. I felt so strongly about this, I was convinced that 5+ years from now I was going to leave the industry and get into politics because someone in the political system needed to advocate for our health.
Corrupt and uneducated politicians were not cutting it for me.
But first, I had to figure out what I needed to fight for once I got in. Even though my beliefs strongly align with the progressive side of things, some of their policies like health care for all, didnât sit well with me and I had no one I trusted to talk to about it.
The people I looked up to in the health world were conservatives or ânot into politicsâ, and the people I looked up in the political world like The Young Turks, knew nothing about health.
The amount of money spent on preventable disease is outrageous. If we give people free âhealthcareâ with no system in place that focuses on patient education and health ownership, the amount of money we spend on disease will keep raising. Healthcare will just be a system that doesnât let people die, while simultaneously keeping them sick.
Which is why itâs no surprise health advocates align with the conservative side when it comes to healthcare. They know Medicaid for all wonât save us when we live in a society that relies on the person in the white coat and insurance companies to dictate their health. But I canât bring myself to support a system that lets people die because they couldnât afford surgery, or a doctorâs appointment after their cut on their foot got infected.
Even though I donât want the person relying on insulin to die by taking away their medication, I want the system to change that got the person relying on medication in the first place.
Over the last year Iâve felt quite alone with my views on things, until one lazy day where I was scrolling through social media and I noticed someone I truly admired in the health industry post something political on facebook.
Dr. Terry Wahls shared something about her son running for state senate. Terry Wahls is one of the pioneers of the paleo and functional medicine world. When I saw a post about her support for Stacey Abrams and researched her Sonâs political background, I immediately felt a rush of hope. I had found someone who seemed to have the same political views and someone who would be way more educated on the topic than me.
I wondered âWhat kind of policies does someone like Wahls believe in? What is her son going to fight for? What do they think of healthcare?! Is her son influenced by her knowledge in health!?â
Really eager to know some of these answers, I emailed her. 2 minutes later I got an automatic response saying she got an overwhelming amount of emailsâŚ.etc etc basically, not getting a response.
HOWEVER, a couple days later, she accepted my interview! I was finally going to get the answers to the questions I had from someone who I trusted and seemed to have the same views as mine.
I was excited to find out how we can bring positive change into the political system that advocates for our health. I wanted to know more about the policies I should be fighting for. And most importantly, I was hoping to find out what my future role in politics was going to be, because I wanted to bring massive change at the highest branches of government.
I got all those answersâŚ..
And halfway through the interview, I found out what my future role was.
Itâs not in politics.
Itâs as coach, a connector.
Someone who connects people to the right information and show them how much control they truly have over their health.
Terry Wahls shifted my perspective and gave me the direction Iâd been searching for.
Now Iâm calling on all fitness and rehab professionals to join me and be the CONNECTORS we have the opportunity of being.
During this interview we go over:Â
How much should the government be involved in our livesÂ
Is a federal solution the answer to getting our society healthy?
Will we ever have healthcare that isn’t influenced by corruption and uneducated politicians?Â
What policies should we be fighting for?Â
Why we should study the attributes of health and happiness?Â
Should the fitness and health industry get politically involved?Â
How to get your tribe involved to create affordability around being healthy
How coaches and health advocates can start creating change at the local level
Thereâs a huge lack of awareness of what individuals in the fitness and performance industry are capable of doing and can do. Fitness professionals are the most important practitioners in the health care system but can be the most overlooked. My first few years working in the sports performance field, I often got the question: âWhy are you a strength and conditioning coach disappointed tone)?â That question always bothered me as it came with assumptions: that I was too good for the job, that strength and conditioning is attached to a stigma of higher education being unnecessary, the career is viewed as a fall back for people who like to exercise, or that I should be doing something more important. I am uncomfortable with all those assumptions.
There are great minds in the fitness and performance industry who just happen to have a passion for training. Those minds are also not myopic, they are creating a paradigm shift in the fitness and performance industry. I am lucky enough to work with some of those individuals who blow me away every day with their level of knowledge and PURSUIT of knowledge. I will be referring to sports performance from a context focused on collegiate athletics, but inferences can be made throughout the fitness industry and the general population. The grand unified theory that I will be discussing is a theory that can be used to shift our performance training paradigm. We are going to raise the bar of what is possible and what we are doing with athletes and clients.
I recently returned from Dr. Ben Houseâs Functional Medicine Retreat in Costa Rica; Yes, a strength and conditioning coach attended a functional medicine retreat, this is the paradigm shift. One of the presenters was Dr. Bryan Walsh who provided this great analogy: A plant needs 2 things, water and sun. However, the soil it is in dictates how well the plant will respond to the water and sun. Well, humans are the same way. Our physiology is what dictates how well humanâs will respond to diet and exercise. As a sports performance coach we need to apply our knowledge and PURSUE knowledge on human physiology in order for athletes to get the most out of training in relation to the outcome of performance.
What is Sports Performance?
We like to make things simple: If I program hang cleans, the athlete will develop the quality of power and perform their sport better. I can even objectively measure whether that athlete is improving in the hang clean exercise by testing. Boom. Itâs as easy as that, right? But they play ice hockey, so how do I measure if getting better at the hang clean is making them a better ice hockey player? Thatâs a good question. I test their skating speed? Boom. Done. So, their ability to hang clean more weight and skate goal line to goal line in a quiet arena with about 10 people watching, no puck in play, and no stakes involved, is an indicator of game performance?
Performance is complex and multi-factorial and my job should be complex and multi-factorial. We are going to have to consider all aspects of performance which is governed by a complex interaction of variables: Task, Organism, and Environment. Performance improvement needs to consider EXPOSURE to elements of these variables and address CONSTRAINTS within these variables.
The specific task being performed is related to the goal of the task and the rules governing the task. The task can include shooting (skill specific) or it can involve an exercise during training; in all accounts it needs to be accomplished within the rules and be related to a goal. The goal of shooting is to put the puck in the net to score points (consistently AND WITH INTENT) and the goal of an exercise is to acquire a training quality with the idea of translating into performance.
How can we incorporate this into training? Manipulate the task (exercise) by setting rules and the completion of the rules accomplishes the goal (exercise). For example, the Kettlebell Deadlift can be accomplished by setting rules: start and end with the KB on a line, stand with midfoot on the line (shout out to Dan Sanzo). We can also educate athletes on the task in its relation to sport performance, which will improve intent.
In relation to performance, the sport itself involves rules, pace, and skills which all need to be specifically trained related to specific game exposure. Specific exposure involves incorporating all variables to the highest intensity or closest to game experience. An example would be creating competition within the specific environment of play, with the same people, with similar rules, with similar movements, and under similar pressures.
In relation to a team setting create competition days within the weight room and consistent testing to expose them to challenge (understanding what a â10â feels like on a scale of 1-10 is a valuable tool). During high intensity practice days, practice at the highest intensity mimicking the game. Our job is to provide exposure to create adaptation and influence outcome.
The environment is what is acting on the system. It is the location of the contest, noise, crowd, weather conditions, and stakes of the competition. It is elements that effect the organism/player which can even include social relationships. Does the athlete respect/like the coach? Did they get into a fight with their significant other before the game? Do they respect their teammates?
Environment also includes the food available to the athlete. Coaches usually harp on athletes about their diet and body composition but rarely connect their actions to their goals. The environment we are creating for that athlete to succeed should do just that, help them succeed. The habits and routines that we want them to have should be facilitated through education, priority setting, and resources available. If you actually care about nutrition and you WANT your athletes to care, why are we creating an environment that provides pizza as a post-game meal? Does that action align with your goals? Is that creating and environment for that athlete to succeed?
The organism category is the player. This incorporates sports psychology, exercise physiology, and biomechanics. The role of the sports performance coach is usually boxed into the silo of biomechanics and physiology. We assess movement and fitness in order to develop exercise programs that will improve the qualities tested (at least thatâs the goal). We want to create structural (ex. increase number of mitochondria) and functional (ex. decrease mile time) adaptations. This is where WE thrive. We can sit at a computer for hours and create complex rep schemes and program design. Itâs what we love. But the athlete can easily sabotage your program by wrecking it with outside factors.
Show awareness that other factors exist besides your block periodization plan. Donât take things too personally when an athlete comes in and isnât excited to do your epic 5-3-1 rep scheme that day. Maybe they just failed an exam, were up until 2am studying, found out that their parents are getting a divorce, just broke up with their significant other. Maybe they perceive you as a jerk and donât want to do your program. CREATE A WELCOMING TRAINING ENVIRONMENT AND TRY TO BE A GOOD PERSON. Performance needs to factor in all aspects of stress load, exposure, and avenues of interventions because they all matter. The whole matters, not just the parts. A HUGE part is psychological.
We need to create an environment where people can express their struggles and emotions. We currently live in a world full of superficial relationships with social media friendships. We shouldnât play therapist but we should create an environment that encourages dialogue and communication where people can understand each other and express themselves. Having a sport psychologist referral is a way to incorporate an interdisciplinary collaboration. If you want to learn more about this or understand how it effects everyone, even professional athletes please read this article by Kevin Love titled âEveryone is going through something.âÂ
Sport performance coaches should explore knowledge of how psychological, physiological, biomechanical (Human), and environmental (Environment) factors interact with the performance outcome/result (Task/goal). We should respect the dynamic nature of constraints and their respective contribution to performance at any given time (Glazier, 2017).
Reducing the number of constraints within each category/component can improve the number of possible configurations that a complex system can adopt in respects to contribution to performance (collective output). Constraints within these variables/categories can create limitations and barriers (ex. fatigue, anxiety) Small-scale changes may have a large-scale impact. A component of this would be to consider actions that are excluded by constraints compared to actions that are caused by the constraint.
How do we do this?
Create a holistic/interdisciplinary approach to performance:
Steps for a better outcome as a fitness or performance coach:
Create a team of referrals and professionals. We need to break down the silos (Glazier, 2017). We need to create an interdisciplinary, collaborative approach to sports performance. Find local physical therapists that you trust to deal with pain, find a local psychologist, and find a local sport nutritionist. Talk to the people you surround yourself with and learn about their areas so you can speak the same language. You will lose by-in and confidence if you speak negatively about other professionals or if the athlete is hearing different opinions.
Environment: Holistic Approach:
 Provide them with the tools to succeed outside of exercise; with the illusion that they have knowledge of the exercise they are participating in. Seriously though. Are athletes leaving with an understanding of how to exercise when they leave college? Do they know how exercise improves health? Do they have a baseline knowledge about exercise and health?
We often lose sight of how the other 22-23 hours in a day outside of the gym can influence performance and health.
Provide them with education and an understanding about how sleep, nutrition (micronutrient and macronutrients), stress, and gut health (yes, we have conversations about the microbiome and probiotics) which can all have an enormous effect on performance and health.
Open communication and provide resources about social connections (interactions with other players), intentions, skills for crucial conversations, and creating a successful environment.
Consider both inter-individual and intra-personal relationships
Environment breads quality of life and genetic expression
Have conversations about who they associated themselves with: Do the people they surround themselves with support the process of accomplishing their goals or do they do the opposite?
Setan example of behavior/habits.
Ultimately you need to work on yourself before you can help or attend to others.
EXPRESS GRATITUDE. Gratitude is the opposite of threat so create an unthreatening environment in which athletes genuinely know that their work is appreciated. (Learned this from Dan Sanzo).
Organism: Create opportunities to make better people
Provide opportunity to develop as athletes as people. Instead of complaining that an athlete is immature or misbehaving, that can be an opportunity for a life lesson. Show that you care outside of how much weight they can lift.
Create a process driven environment instead of a goal driven environment (shout out to Kyle Dobbs).
Attending college should not just be a time to chase a degree or grades in the hope of getting a job. College is about learning to understand who you are and who you want to be. Students and athletes often become lost after graduation when they lose their identity as a student or athlete.
Task: Choice of Training Modalities: Train them HARD and SMART:
Provide challenge and exposure. Challenge athletes personally and physically. Provide athletes with fitness and challenge so they can physically increase the bodyâs ability to cope with the physical stress of their sport. Challenge them mentally by creating competition and make them think. Challenge them with accountability and standards.
We should understand that there is more than getting athletes to increase their max deadlift weight. There are consequences to training (especially myopic training), which implies both positive and negative results. Increasing an athleteâs deadlift max may reduce their performance on the field. Performance enhancement is complex and multi-factorial. The important thing is how the athlete plays their sport.
Conclusion
 The Grand Unified Theory was originally introduced by Newell (1986). In order to accomplish a performance outcome we need to consider how organism, task, and environment interact to influence behavior (coordination and control). Constraints within these categories provide boundaries and limitations that reduce the number of coordinative configurations (options) and create compensations that impact behavioral output. A limitation to performance can be anxiety. Lack of exposure to any of these variables can create anxiety due to lack of control. Anxiety as an emotion can physically manifest shifting from an external to internal focus of attention.
We also can take away from this theory that there are no absolutes. Sports performance can and should incorporate a wide variety of knowledge and the PURSUIT of knowledge. If you do what you have always done, you will be what youâve always been. Explore not just the what but explain how and why it happens. We need to start rewriting what our industry is rather than letting people define what our field is. There is no such thing as having all the answers but change happens when we ask the right questions and pursue the answersâŚ
References
Glazier, P.S. (2017). Towards a Grand Unified Theory of Sports Performance. Human Movement Science, 56, 139-156.
Newell, K.M. (1986). Constraints on the development of coordination. In M.G. Wade & H.T.A Whiting (Eds), Motor development in children: Aspects of coordination and control, 341-360.
A couple of years ago Bill Hartman opened my mind to a new way of assessing someone’s movement needs. Since then, Through Bill and Zac’s work, I’ve developed a movement assessment that helps my clients move better. When clients move well, progressing them to lifting comes with little to no problems.
This morning while running on 5ish hours of sleep, jet lagged, and after too much coffee, I decided to take the students through my thought process when picking breathing activities for my clients. I will be refining this and adding the lower extremities, but in the meantime, learn what breathing and arm position a client needs when picking activities.
Also, sorry for the gum chewing :O
ENJOY! and let me know if it helps, or if it didn’t and you’re still confused. If this doesn’t make sense, I will find a better way of explaining it.
Are 30 day challenges where you cut out certain foods or follow a certain diet a thing that we should stop encouraging? If we’re wanting our clients to get results they can sustain, are we better off helping our clients change their relationship with food vs encouraging another diet?
In this interview, Kelsey shares her nutrition approach she takes with clients. The results say it all:
Learn about Kelsey’s approach, start implementing a few things she talks about with your clients, or find someone like her to work with your clients if things are out of your skill set.
Where to find Kelsey:
Her website:Â https://kelseyflanagannutrition.com/
I want my clients’ upper-body lifts to look good. When they look good we can really add load and increase their strength. If they fall apart and complain that it hurts, we can’t really progress.
During this webinar, I go over the mistakes I made early on that left me with little to no results. I go over what I do now to get my client’s shoulder mobility to increase and their pushing and pulling to look good đ
If you struggle understanding all this crazy breathing stuff, this webinar is PERFECT for you.
Do you work with the post rehab/chronic pain population? I’m sure you get a few who are scared of strength training, who think their body is fragile and only capable of low level activities like yoga and pilates.
How do you gain their trust and progress them through a program without them feeling like your training is going to hurt them?
Below is a video of my protocol for these types of clients. How I take them from scared fragile clients to regular gym-goers đ
If you’re interested in learning more about pain, I’ve written about it here and here.
If you want to know more about studying your target market check out this post.
