January 2016 - Page 2 of 4 - MiguelAragoncillo.com

January 21, 2016January 21, 2016

Top 4 Things I Learned in 2015

It’s roughly 21 days into 2016. Three weeks is enough time to sit, reflect on what occurred the previous year, and to see what needs to be adjusted.

If I can sum up what I’ve learned in 2015, it is to prioritizing and respecting time, think critically about what I have control over (and what I don’t have control over), owning my decisions, and not letting the crowd dictate what is right and wrong for me.

1. Re-Organize Your Thoughts

It is not always about acquiring new pieces of information. Sometimes it is best to re-arrange your current knowledge set, and then finding out what is missing. I have not had the blessing to attend to as many continuing education courses as I had wished to attend. However, I had begun to ask myself, “Why do you always need to go to a new course? For new information? What about the information you currently have? How can you best utilize that to the best of your ability?”

From here, I begun to implement a new course of thought, which is to identify how to improve how I see exercise selection, how I view exercise programming, improving the assessment process, along with continually sharpening my skill set as a strength coach and personal trainer from a motivational and interpersonal point of view.

Re-organizing my thoughts has also allowed me to prioritize how I view many things: whether it is education, time spent with others, or time spent on things outside of work. Sure, this is a lot of introspection on my end, but without understanding what is important to me, I won’t be able to act appropriately or represent myself in the best way possible.

What You Can Take Away From This

If you have any interest in mastery of any passion, learn to think critically. If you don’t have all the pieces to a puzzle in place, what can you do instead? If you do have all the pieces to a puzzle in place, what would you do if one of those pieces went missing? Stay ready so you don’t need to get ready.

Re-organizing my thoughts has allowed me to respect not only the time it takes to create something great, but also helps me to understand what is important to others, and how to respect their time as well.

2. Everyone Works Hard. Some Just Don’t Talk About It.

There is no such thing as an overnight success. Not many individuals are willing to both work hard and work smart – simply because working smart involves pattern recognition and seeing things in a more efficient manner, and working hard involves placing things into position one brick at a time.

With those combined, along with the implementation of the internet/social media, it is easy to see how people will talk about how hard they are working. Well, I can tell you that late nights and sleepless nights, traveling for hours for courses, traveling to see family (because that is a priority of mine as well) – it is not easy. No one will particularly find memorizing and synthesizing patterns of gait, or muscular patterns, or seamlessly integrating advanced exercise programming within a program to be particularly “sexy” – it is just part of the process.

I had a friend early on in my career tell me that his grandmother told him to, “Do the jobs that no one else wants to do – and you will always have work.” This resonates with me even to this day, because no job is above me, and I believe this to my core.

Working hard is literally taking out the trash every night, and sweeping the floors. Working smart is getting someone to do it for you instead. Doing both means you help them so you can both leave faster. It all comes down to intent. No one tweets about how much trash they just took out, or Snapchats them taking out the trash – it is just part of the job.

What You Can Take Away From This

Everyone assumes greatness is on the way for those who “hustle” and “grind,” or for those who are always busy. I’ll tell you what – for every Mike Tyson, or Muhammad Ali, or Michael Jordan, or Stephen Curry, there are hundreds if not thousands of failed athletes that never made it for many circumstances.

Never assume greatness, and don’t count your chickens before they hatch. Plus, if you do happen to have that secret sauce for being super special, you need to fend off those who are coming for your championship belt or ring. The work never stops, it just changes its shape or form.

3. People Will Talk

People will talk about you. People will say negative things about what they think of you. Some will have nice things to say. I hear what people are saying, and I take it all with a grain of salt. Not everyone will like you. Not everyone will agree with you. This doesn’t mean you have to stop respecting people. If you watched Michael Jordan during his prime, you know he has had his fair share of rivals. This does not mean he wasn’t respected – it just meant that he wasn’t liked sometimes.

But what matters most is what you think about yourself, and how you will react to what these people are saying. The peanut gallery is not always correct. You can choose your own path, and once you make your decision, that is that.

A professor of mine once said to me, “You make your own bed.” This was in response to seeing me breakdance in the hallways everyday after my exercise physiology classes. I was getting B’s and C’s in the class, when I could have gotten A’s. I have no regrets about those grades, because I have my own priorities.

This statement of “making my own bed” has stuck with me. I think about it every other day, because the decisions I make are ultimately my own, not anyone else’s.

Sure nuff, standing out from the crowd through my dancing has also allowed my foot to get in the door in many cases where I would not have had the same chance.

What You Can Take Away From This

Almost every day I work with high school athletes, and I hope to instill the confidence that if they were to walk into a collegiate or professional gym at any point in their careers, I instilled the most correct form, technique, and sound advice that I could have in the moment. With this said, it is tough to go against the grain if a team of people are saying you should do one thing, when you know the other action is the most correct form.

Have the confidence to stand up for yourself, and stand up for what you believe is right.

Now this tip, along with the first lesson, are biased because it is assuming that everyone wants to be great. This is something I’ve come to accept as well. Others simply would love to settle for whatever it is they currently have. That is fine.

4. All that glitters is not gold.

What this means to me is that just because something is shiny, or a low hanging fruit, does not mean it is the most correct or best decision to make. You need to prioritize what is important to you, and then figure out whether or not this specific shiny item is meant for you or not.

Your shiny object could be ice cream. It is a low hanging fruit, and it is easy to buy on the way home from work, and it is an awesome tasting treat. I’ve driven out to get specifically just this item many times late at night. For some people it is a beer, others it is candy.

Your decision to invest time, attention, and energy on that shiny object may come at a cost of a specific emotional, physical, or financial investment that you did not have the foresight to see during the heat of the moment of that decision of “Yes” or “No.” The cost of doing business has far greater implications than originally planned.

Should you go out to party? Maybe – you might meet your future wife at this party.

Should you stay at home? Maybe not! You might miss out on a great time that will solidify years of friendship down the line.

We all make decisions daily – not many think about what the cost of these small, minute decisions has on our day to day life, or our year to year life.

What You Can Take Away From This

Let me tell you a quick story:

I had met Tony Bonvechio at a seminar in early 2012, and he caught wind that I was applying for an internship at the then Cressey Performance. Fast forward a few months, and I was in the middle of my internship at Cressey Sports Performance. I previously just made a “jump” from New Jersey to Massachusetts, and in fact, I didn’t know a single soul in the area – it was fairly uncomfortable for me to live in an area where I didn’t know anyone!

Later on in 2012, I remember Tony buying me lunch (we had pizza) and we talked shop for a little bit after a seminar. He was on the fence about applying for this internship in 2012. I had no other advice but to “jump” and do it.

Two years later, and I end up getting hired at CSP at the same time he begins his internship in the fall of 2014. We didn’t know that we would be working together because we had different paths, and eventually his brilliance shines through, so we end up working together – and the rest is history as they say.

“The first step, before anybody else in the world believes it is you have to believe it. There’s no reason to have a plan B because it distracts from plan A.” -Will Smith

Tony prioritized, made a jump, worked hard (and didn’t tweet about his hustle), and ended up benefiting greatly as a cause of committing 110% to what he believed in – he ended up getting hired in 2014.

Prioritize what is important to you, and just decide.

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My 2015 can be summarized in these few lessons. Crazy to think that almost 365 days out of the year can be summarized in just four short lessons, but these are some things that I’ve reflected on. I hope to improve upon my decision making process, along with prioritizing the things that are important to me as the rest of 2016 unfolds.

As always,

Keep it funky.

January 20, 2016January 20, 2016

4 Methods to Improving Speed Qualities

First of all, yes – that’s me in the videos and pictures.

And yes, the information that Lee Taft went over was great and informative, and I highly recommend it.

Second of all, I’m already biased towards you starting this certification, because I have already been exposed to this information, and I am also an affiliate for this product – this means I’ll get kickbacks if you sign up using my link.

When Lee and I were going over all of these drills (surprise surprise, I’m not just a model for pictures – we did sprinting and change of direction drills for over 8 plus hours!), I took away many things that I was never exposed to because I didn’t have formal collegiate or professional athletic training.

I understood what it meant to apply force into the ground in a meaningful manner. You can’t do backflips, no handed cartwheels, or do extremely fast footwork from a dancing point of view without applying just the right amount of force to get the move just right!

If you work with athletes, there are tons of ways to get them faster.

Strength Training
Physiological Speed & Power
Joint Positioning
Technical Practice

In this certification, you’ll be going over WHY you’re choosing which exercise at what exact time for your specific athlete. Not all athletes are the same, and not all athletes respond the same way to any given cue. If you, as a coach or trainer, have a specific desire or wanted outcome that you know will get your athlete or client to the next level, understanding what to say, or what corrective exercise (in the nature shown in this certification) is imperative.

Understanding the Qualities for Speed

Strength training is often touted and praised as one of many ways to improve upon an athlete’s speed. The general recommendation of simply improving an athlete’s speed calls upon understanding the force velocity curve, along with understanding the implications of how strength training can impact an athlete’s overall and absolute speed.

Essentially, just because you can squat heavy, does not mean you can sprint fast. And just because you can sprint fast, does not mean you can squat heavy.

However, somewhere in between these two statements, you will find that it is a general rule of thumb that those with better ability to express strength in squats will also be likely able to sprint at a relatively fast speed.

At some point however, an athlete’s strength in the squat will need to have some type of transfer towards his or her sport. If an athlete cannot display this newfound strength towards either a change of direction or linear sprint mechanic, then I will have to argue that squatting for strength qualities is no longer necessary. Sprinting (or whatever else it may be sports specific skillwise) technique and speed will need to be improved upon in order to get better at sprinting.

From a nervous system point of view, improving elasticity of force production when sprinting is something that can be viewed through several tests. Essentially, force absorption and force production over a duration of time is necessary to understand when you are aiming to improve physiological speed and power.

There are tons of tests to assess an athlete’s reactivity in whichever sporting demands you are aiming to test: 5-10-5 (pro-agility) shuttle, vertical jump (with and without countermovement), or even the amount (and height) of jumps over 10 seconds, are just a few tests you can perform.

Further, whenever a parent of an athlete comes in and says to me “Johnny needs to get a little bit faster,” there are a few things that can be improved upon initially, but the large majority of the time these are 12 to 15 or 16 year old athletes that need a few things:

Muscular hypertrophy and strength
Neuromuscular coordination
Go through an appropriate strength and conditioning program that doesn’t involve only ladder drills and 20 minute runs.
To go through puberty.

If an athlete is a late bloomer, or hasn’t even gone through puberty, it will be difficult to support a physiological requirement for absolute speed without any hormonal, neuromuscular, or skeletal adaptations that often take months if not years to develop. Asking a baseball player to get a sub 7 second 60 yard dash is difficult to do as a professional, let alone as a freshman high school athlete.

Long story short, improving the physiological make up of an athlete (which is the hormonal, neuromuscular, and skeletal adaptations necessary for athletic development) takes time.

Teaching and Programming for Speed

The next two points are areas where I believe myself and other coaches and trainers can have the fastest lightbulb moments for athletes, simply because this is the area where changes can be seen relatively fast. Improving strength and physiological power and speed take time. Telling an athlete to get lower out of a two point stance in order to improve push off out of the hole is like magic.

When speaking about joint positioning, it is imperative to understand that there are good and bad positions when thinking about improving your sport specific demand.

There is a difference between knee valgus, and hip internal rotation in the effort to absorb force when decelerating or changing directions.

There is a difference between dorsiflexion of the ankle over the talocrural joint and plantarflexion of only the metatarsals of the foot.

Improving someone’s requisite range of motion and control over that range of motion can take several forms and methods in order to achieve said position. However, just achieving that end position is not the only purpose for training – it is these movements backed by strength, power, speed, and endurance qualities that is the end goal!

If you want to improve an athlete’s speed, getting them into the right positions from a general perspective (ie. Can you move your ankle into dorsiflexion in order to deliver an appropriate force into the ground during sprints?).

Talking About Practice?

Now the idea of practice can take several forms. The essential goal of practicing for speed is to learn a sequencing of events in order to facilitate your body in the face of an opponent or external and moving object. If you can accelerate and speed past an opponent on the soccer field, or if you can run a ball into the end zone faster than anyone else can catch you – then you can and should work on that skillset.

This certification won’t go over the technical aspects of how to get your athletes better through specific drills, like running slant drills, or working on technical cone drills for teams – but the ideas remain for individual athletes. You can learn what external cues to use to facilitate better movement quality, along with understanding how to improve upon your athletes’ errors that may occur.

Certified Speed and Agility Coach

I like the things that Lee Taft has taught me and allowed me to see. These are things that I now use on a daily basis with many of my athletes, as the athletes that come through at Cressey Sports Performance are not just baseball athletes, but often multi-sport athletes who are looking to improve overall awareness of their movement capacity. Please check out his Certified Speed and Agility Certification if you are anyone who trains with youth, collegiate, or professional athletes.

As always,

Keep it funky.

January 19, 2016January 19, 2016

One Weird Trick: Installment 4 – Hacking the Lunge

Performing single leg or unilateral movements has a host of benefits. However, many may not realize or perform these movements properly because of dysfunction, uncomfortable sensations when going onto one leg, or even pain.

Some benefits for single leg training range from improving sport specific qualities, improving gait patterns for activities of daily living, along with training “imbalances” that may occur from a host of reasons.

Something that is not evident when training bilateral movements like the squat or deadlift involves understanding what happens when you effectively split a pelvis in terms of stabilizing musculature.

In the squat and deadlift, you need to move both sides of the pelvis together as one unit – that is, if you are going down into a squat (or slight bottom position of the deadlift), you will need to be performing a hip flexion moment on both sides of the right and left hip. On the ascension or way up during the squat, you will be performing hip extension.

However, unlike a bilateral movement, in the unilateral exercises, one pelvis will be in hip flexion, and the other will hopefully be in hip extension. This is simply the nature of how unilateral lower body exercises work.

Hip Extension + Hip Flexion — One pelvis needs to dissociate from the other!

If you have ever gotten an assessment, understand that about 90 degrees (or more) of hip flexion, and 90 degrees (and slightly more) are needed in order to effectively split the pelvis. If you have these requisite ranges, and you can perform them without pain, then I believe you can move on to loading a split squat or single leg deadlift pattern.

If there is a psychological fear of moving in any specific direction, and you already have that specific range of motion required to performing those requisite movements, try this trick out.

So what happens when someone can’t effectively put one hip into hip flexion, and the other into hip extension? Well, a ton of things could be going on at the biomechanical and muscular level:

Hip Joint Issue
Ankle Joint Issue (or Foot or Even Toe)
Sacral-Iliac Joint Issue (Different than the Hip)
Soft Tissue Quality
Anything else up the chain (lumbar, thoracic region, etc.)

The above issues can happen for all types of reasons – lack of use, too much use, inability to understand how to achieve depth during a split squat or lunging, or single leg deadlift pattern, or maybe even the individual has never done that exercise before.

However, what happens when these biomechanical items begin to bleed into other systems – such as the emotional or psychological state of your client? It is not out of the question to understand that if someone cannot lunge because of pain in any of the five items outlined above, there may be other extraneous factors that can be limiting them from achieving better movement quality.

Psychological fear of movement is a very real thing, and pain is often a solid defense mechanism for warning the individual to avoid getting to that range of motion or trying that movement pattern out. There are many ways to de-threaten the system – this is just one more way to do improving movement quality!

As always,

Keep it funky.