I’ve been relatively busy in the past few months. I’ve been picking up hours at a satellite location for Endeavor Sports Performance roughly 45 minutes away, on top of taking private clients in the city, and writing a few articles weekly for various publications – all of this can add up to some late nights, some not so great lifts, and some insight into what amounts of caffeine are legally allowed before delirium sets in. Also, I’ve been upping my practice time for bboying twofold as well. In my case, there is no candle because it is already burned away.
With that being said, I’d like to kick off the month of April with an amalgamation of my late night thoughts, as I’ve been crushing caffeine a lot as well.
1. The athletes that I’m working with at our satellite location in Pennsylvania involve primarily baseball players, a stark difference from the teams of hockey players I was working with for the past several months in New Jersey. From findings in their assessments, to their own individual programming, there are a lot of individual factors that differentiate sport to sport, position to position, and ultimately individual vs individual. These individualizations will reflect kindly in their exercise program.
2. Corrective exercise as a business idea is a misnomer – it is supposed to be an individual exercise, but it is currently being marketed as a cure-all for any and all individuals. As an ideology within an exercise program, the exercise will reflect the necessity for that specific movement. If you need a better grade of an ASLR, there are probably a few hundred standard “corrective exercises” out there that will affect that score. It is the job of the assessment to reveal the structure of the hip, reflexive timing of the core, along with soft tissue and nervous system quality that will allow guidance of a specific “corrective exercise” for that person.
3. Listening is crucial to understanding a person’s perspective. They will tell you everything you need to know, or the lack of talking will speak for itself as well.
4. Arm care programs aren’t arm care programs, if they don’t account for the specific anatomy and kinesiology of each individual’s scapular position, glenohumeral range of motion, and ultimately ribcage positioning.
5. As a strength coach working with athletes, I’m looking for the development of two qualities: developing movement patterns, and improving rate of force production (RFD). Being able to alter either into a positive direction will do lots more than simply chasing heavier and more weight on the bar.
6. On the same note, if you have the most powerful athlete in the world shifting into that positive direction of more RFD, but they cannot keep up in a game due to lack of aerobic endurance, you’ve built a powerful cannon that takes a year to reload. Choose how you train wisely, in other words.
7. Fat loss (and mass gain at that) is still 98% psychological, 1% logistics, 1% action. The question comes down to: How can you change the mindset before you change the actions?
8. Following an exercise program will provide you the outline for a potential program’s goal. Coming in, getting the work done, and getting after it is crucial to seeing success, and then some.
9. If you didn’t know, I have Online Coaching available for 2 more clients. Interested? Check it out here.
10. Everyone is busy. 12 year olds are busy, 14 year olds are busy, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 30 year olds – point is, everyone knows how to keep busy. It is in the prioritization and re-prioritization of your “busy hours” that will lead to success.
11. There are 168 hours in a week, 24 hours in a day, and ultimately 86400 minutes in a day.
12. With long commutes in my present and future days, I’ve had lots of time to download different audio podcasts outside of the realm of fitness (Strength Coach Podcast is still my first to update). But one podcast that I’ve been listening to for the past couple weeks/months is The School of Greatness by Lewis Howes. One recent podcast detailed the idea of “flow” and getting “into the zone”. Working with athletes, this is one podcast that I had to play more than once (and one that I will probably play a few more times because I haven’t had the chance to write down ideas while I drive!). “Getting into the zone” is a subject that interplays with the subject of athleticism quite often, so if you have any hour long commutes I’d fully recommend this specific one, if not the podcast as a whole!
13. Live in New York City? Going to be around the city in about 2 weeks? If you’d like to meet up on Saturday, April 12, and/or Sunday, April 13, I’ll be helping Jordan Syatt coach at his Maximum Strength Seminar. Click this link in order to sign up!
14. Finally, if you’re not on my newsletter, sign up on the sidebar or below. I’ll be providing much more news to enhancing sports performance, gym performance, along with a free e-book that I’m still in the works of finishing! (I’m a bit of a perfectionist, sue me! I’d rather give you high quality information for FREE than nothing at all.)
Keep it funky.
-MA