Uncategorized Archives - Page 8 of 12

March 4, 2016March 4, 2016

Awareness & Culture – Two Things That Make Me Different Than Everyone Else

Having the ability to think in different languages is a humongous thing. This is something that I’ve naturally done since I was born. My mom grew up in the Philippines, and worked in Japan. These random facts bring to light the fact that my mom was speaking Japanese, Filipino, English, and Spanish (because it is already relatively close to Filipino due to culture).

My mom was probably yelling at me in all of these languages combined, and it was naturally for me to understand one sentence in different contexts as a baby and kid. Whenever I’m home, my grandma still speaks to me in Tagalog, and I understand what is being said, especially when I’m hungry, when food is on the table, when she needs something, when things matter.

[Side Note: There has been some interesting research talking about how understanding multiple languages as a baby keeps certain windows open during their developmental years.]

I remember in the first grade, I helped my mom during a “Cultures Around the World” program, where we spoke for about 5 to 6 minutes in straight Japanese (keep in mind I’m 100% Filipino). Granted it was relatively conversational in nature, because I was about 6/7 years old, but the story should serve a purpose – having the ability to speak multiple languages is the one skill set that I know I have that makes me different than everyone else.

Now, translating this to my adult and professional life, there is thought process that involves learning how to speak “multiple languages” to different populations of people. I’m not talking about speaking Khmer to my Cambodians, or Spanish to my fellow Spanish-speaking brethren (I can if I need to), but I have the ability to blend in with different friends and populations.

Working as a personal trainer, to youth athletes in multiple populations (hockey, lacrosse, soccer, baseball, dancing, basketball, bboys, etc) all the way to a slightly more older and professional athletic population is merely an extension of my ability to speak multiple languages. It’s a survival mechanism at its least, and my natural intuition at its best.

The way I’m going to communicate a specific drill to someone who plays basketball to make them buy-in is going to be much different than someone who has never played anything other than baseball, for example.

Multiple Skills That Make All The Difference

Another interesting aspect is other people continuously pointing out to me that I am a “certain person” when it comes to a niche, skillset, or any other professionally minded skill.

While I appreciate the notion that I have developed an expertise, it is interesting to hear these observations from my peers:

I’ve been clumped together with being a “breathing guy” because I’ve been to multiple continuing education courses.

Read: Posts Tagged “Postural Restoration Institute”

I’ve been classified as a “dance movement guy” only because my background is in dancing.

I’ve been classified as an “energy systems guy” because I’ve done a few presentations on aerobic energy systems.

Read: 5 Thoughts on Conditioning for Dancers

I haven’t been classified as a “powerlifting guy” despite being only 55lbs away from an elite total at the 148lb weight class. Despite having a deadlift over 3.5 times bodyweight.

I’ve been classified as a research driven guy (despite me not having a Master’s, or any other graduate level education).
I’ve been classified as a stats guys (despite me only collecting basic level information on athletes and questionnaires from online clients).
I haven’t been classified as a baseball strength and conditioning guy, despite doing a 4 month internship, and collecting over 1.5 years of capital at Cressey Sports Performance, a sports performance facility in Hudson, MA (and now Jupiter, FL).
Among many other things that are probably not as nice.

The truth of the matter is that I enjoy diving deep into many different social circles, groups, and creating multiple friends in many different ways.

My purpose is to not “show off” what people have said about me. Rather, I grew up in a world where the word “labels” had a negative connotation, so I chose to diversify my energy into not having any one label!

This is to display that people’s observations of what people think of who you are, and where they fit you in their head should not deter you from what your goals are and what they should be.

Navigating multiple social circles, sub-cultures (I’ve danced, talked about basketball, talked anime, and then talked about getting strong on the front side with athletes in less than about 10 minutes – it happens pretty regularly), along with learning to speak to multiple people and how they view things from their world is a skill set that is difficult to convey in a succinct message.

What Can You Take From This?

One thing that I try to encourage co-workers, friends, and interns to do is to get out of their comfort zone. With that said, if you’re reading this, I highly recommend challenging yourself in this way:

I challenge you, the reader, the thinker, the coach, the trainer, to envelope yourself in another culture, or to discover something about another culture that you would not have known about.

This doesn’t take 20 years to do, but rather small pieces of conversation that truly allow you to become immersed in another person’s life.

You don’t need to, and you can always do whatever the f*ck you want to do, but when you begin to expose yourself to multiple multiple cultures, whether it is hanging out with acquaintances, or members of a rival team, or someone you initially don’t get along with, you’ll find out more about yourself and how you process information, and how your emotions are regulated.

Now, if this doesn’t speak to you, that’s cool. I’m always attempting to push my comfort levels, whether it is in the context of continuing education, powerlifting, or learning what makes a youth athlete tick (it is Snapchat and Instagram at the moment). I challenge you to do the same thing.

As always,

Keep it funky.

February 12, 2016

One Weird Trick: Installment 7 – Roll Out, Roll Out

Many times in our quest for six-packedness, we embark on several different exercises that are targeted towards our abs. In reality, what is the true, underlying solution towards revealing a six-pack? Positive hormonal changes due to sleep, nutrition, and training derived changes, along with slight hypertrophy of the obliques. (I say obliques intentionally, because many times the rectus abdominis could be overly relied on in a synergistic dominance point of view.)

That isn’t where the weird trick comes into play. The above is meant to be followed through with of course!

During this quest for aesthetics and awesomeness, torso position is something that is of utmost importance during various abdominal and core-related drills.

If our ability to produce force is limited by the ability to resist motion in our midsection, then this idea of challenging motion in any capacity will be introduced. Well, why does resisting motion even matter?

Well, to put it very simply, imagine if you have two linemen opposing each other. From a biomechanics and muscular level, would you rather take someone who can resist being pushed around, or someone who will fall down at the slightest movement?

(Keep in mind, from a tactical point of view, there may be an advantage towards letting someone push while you allow them to push – which will ultimately let them fall on their butt.)

Pull when someone pushes and you get thrown!

There are tons of other science-y reasons why developing resiliency at the abdominals, and ultimately, the spinal vertebrae will help you get a six pack!

Spinal motion can involve rotation in both directions, extension, flexion, and side bending both ways, not to mention a total combination of all of these movements. When trying to perform stability ball rollouts, however, you need to be cognizant of not letting yourself lose position!

Another Trick That Involves Balls

In any case, this one weird trick involves developing tension in the most correct path towards improving co-contraction for your abdominals and even extensors of the posterior chain in your backside.

If you perform stability ball rollouts, or ab wheel rollouts, make sure to do these items from an external cuing perspective:

External Cues

Maintain a long line towards the ceiling.
Resist motion in any one direction while in your first starting position
Punch arms down into ground as you descend into the bottom/second position.

How Does This Trick Work?

Many are focused too much on their abdominals during this exercise, and performing rollouts in this manner is probably the most efficacious way to do them! You feel your abs kick on right away, and you can even maintain a better position while performing your stability ball rollouts!

Long story short, performing bilateral shoulder extension (the act of bringing your hands down and back, or away from the ceiling) will elicit torso flexion. Now, as we perform this movement in the stability ball rollout, we are in fact challenging torso extension – so if we combine the two…

Torso Extension + Shoulder Extension = Co-Contraction of All Torso Muscles

This is great news, because we don’t need to think about our position too much, just performing the action in a subconscious and perform it to an immediate mastery! That’s what I’m talking about!

As always,

Keep it funky!

January 29, 2016January 31, 2016

4 Common Errors Youth Athletes Make

At Cressey Sports Performance, speed and agility are all the buzz now. In fact, we are so focused on improving movement quality, that we often prescribe for our professional athletes two days quite literally focused on the movements outside of just lifting heavy weights.

It is one thing to create the environment for lifting weights, and another to take that next step and help an athlete learn how to sprint better, decelerate better, and improve their overall movements that you know will transfer to their sport.

Here are a few things that I see on a daily basis when it comes to errors that our athletes make.

Not Being Aggressive Enough with Arm Swing

This is a common item, as whenever we begin teaching sprinting drills at CSP, most often the athlete just simply hasn’t been instructed on what to do with their hands. Most of the time sport coaches will cue feet and knee mechanics, but not many think to also cue hands to help improve motion in either a forward or lateral direction.

This is a simple fix, however.

Simply cue the athlete to bring their hands back behind their torso by any means necessary. You can use tall kneeling drills, seated drills, or external cues to help improve this process.

Arm Swing - Corrections — Left (Correct): Top Hand placement is correct, and bottom arm angle is further back than the right. Right (Incorrect): Hand placement is more forward than left picture, and down arm’s angle is less than left.

Lack of Positive Shin Angle During Linear Acceleration

Another item is what to do with their body when they are “getting out of the hole.” There are many reasons why someone may look to improve their “shin angles” – they might be chasing an opponent, they are rushing back to defense (basketball), or any slew of items in which linear mechanics are of the most importance.

You see, when talking about speed drills, there needs to be an understanding that everything needs to contribute to going as fast as you can. If 3 out of 4 pieces of the puzzle are there, but that last piece is nowhere to be found, then you may be left in the dust by an athlete that could be stronger, faster, or more technically efficient.

Linear Acceleration — Left (Correct): Positive shin angle leads to better forward motion of the athlete. Right: Negative or neutral shin angle reflects deceleration or slowing down.

This item talks about the ability for ground reaction forces to displace in a horizontal fashion. If you can imagine, there needs to be an equal and opposite force to whenever you move. So if you have a “knees over your toes” angle, you will tend to “fall” forward.

This can reinforced through several drills:

Lean-Fall-Sprint
Half Kneeling Starting Positions (into a Sprint)
Push Up and Go Starting Positions (into a Sprint)
Jump Back into a Sprint (in which the positive shin angle is created by a reactive step)
Prowler Pushes/Marches

… among many other drills.

If you don’t have a positive shin angle, you will be “telling” your body to decelerate automatically, and your lower half of your leg is no longer contributing to speed and acceleration.

Lack of Positive Shin Angle During Lateral Deceleration

This is very similar to the other item mentioned above, although the spin on this error is referring to what occurs during side to side deceleration.

Many drills and tests even separate the good from great, such as the Pro Agility Shuttle Test or 5-10-5, in which you are decelerating several times to identify how good your mechanics are for acceleration and deceleration.

This shin angle is important, because this can mean the difference between being cut off, or making an important play whether you are on the field, court, or rink.

Keep in mind this is no encouraging a genu valgus or simply knees collapsing in towards each other. This purpose is to improve your abilities to absorb force, and decelerate appropriately without any extraneous steps.

Lateral Deceleration Collage — Left (Correct): The positive or acute shin angle will reflect the ability for the athlete to change directions quicker than the picture on the right. Right (Incorrect): The positive shin angle also reflects oversupination in which the athlete loses footing and could possibly roll an ankle!

Lack of Head Movement During Deceleration

This last item is one that is not often talked about, because it is not thought about that much.

If I can summarize this in one phrase – where the head goes, the body follows.

So if you are talking about acceleration or deceleration, your eyes and head position are vastly important towards improving your mechanics.

In fact, it might be one of the most important items, for the mere fact that you have many vestibular related items in your noggin, along with needing the ability to view and be aware of what is going on the field. If you are caught up looking down at the grass, you won’t be able to see what is going on player wise, positions that may be compromised, ball placement, among several different items.

So, barring any negative detriments towards tactical or strategic items (head fakes in basketball), if you can lead with your eyes towards the destination you want to go.

If you want to jump in the air, you need to look up (barring keeping your eyes on the ball).
If you want to go forward, look down (re: acceleration).
If you want to change directions, shift your eyes towards that direction, even if your body is going in another direction.

These are just a few items that I’ve picked up along my travels as a strength coach and trainer for several different sports and clients. I believe you can learn so much more by signing up to be a Certified Speed and Agility Coach by Lee Taft. I’ve had the blessing of being the “model” for this product, and we had a lot of time to discuss other cool things outside of filming. Please check it out, and remember I do get a cut if you do sign up through my affiliate links. Thank you!

As always,

Keep it funky.

P.S. This speed and agility course ends today, Friday, January 29, so make sure to sign up because the powers that be will be shutting down sign-ups afterwards!

–> Become a Certified Speed and Agility Coach today! <–