Two days this week I watched a football team finish their weight workout with 15 to 20 minute of “Abs” all on the ground, just counting out reps, no coaching, no concentration, no intensity! Mindless work is not training. To quote a grizzled old football coach “when I see players lying around on the ground or sitting they are not training for the game.” Last time I checked the game is played on your feet, if you are on the ground you are beat! Last week at the GAIN Apprentorship Jim Radcliffe presented on the Oregon Football training program from A to Z. It was awesome, systematic sequential and progressive. The only drills done on the ground were drills to teach you to get up quickly. The proof is in the pudding. Train with a purpose, make it game like with intensity, concentration and effort.

Tim Sullivan wrote the following in response to my Rules for Robots post from yesterday:

My understanding is if you keep bending it like a credit card or hotel card eventually it will break or law of repetitive motion... to this rule only applies to a small amount of the training program, when heavy superficial external loads are place on the body... to this is another way of saying isolate them out.

Of late I keep hearing this law of repetitive motion quoted. Who wrote this law? Sounds like another guru platitude. The body is not rigid piece of plastic, nor is it a machine. These kind of inane comparisons and analogies do not do justice to the body. The body is designed to solve moment problems, sure it adapts to certain patterns if repeated whether they are loaded or unloaded. Think of a stoop worker in the fields? The body is highly adaptive. In sport situations and in fact life and work situations that are highly repetitive that is why we find appropriate means ...Keep Reading

In something that has become almost unprecedented in today's short sprints, we're going to get the chance to watch the top two two of the top three titans of the sprinting world face off in a non-championship race on July 10th in Rome. That's right, Tyson Gay and Usain Bolt Asafa Powell will finally hit the track to face off against each other in what has been a match almost a year in the making. Tyson is the man with the fastest 100m under any conditions and the fastest 100m and 200m of 2009 (with the 100m being a wind aided 9.75). Usain is the indomitable sprint sensation that rocked the sporting world last summer by dropping World Record 9.69 and 19.30 times at the Beijing Olympics. Asafa is the fast 100m time-trialer the world has ever seen. Because of Tyson's hamstring injury at the 2008 Olympic trials we never got to see him possibly give Bolt or Powell a run for his their money. Usain has been dropping some subtle trash talk on Tyson, dismissing his recent 9.75 and saying ...Keep Reading

• No overhead lifting – Dangerous for the shoulder
• No squatting or lunging with the knee past the toe – Dangerous for the knee
• Keep your spine neutral – Dangerous for the spine
• Draw in to activate TA – Protect the spine

And on and on ad nauseum. These are rules that made to be broken. When you follow rules like this the assumption is that the body lives, works and plays in a phone booth. These rules are artificial rules that don’t work. We live, work and play in a proprioceptively demanding environment that is ever changing. We are not robots; we are human problem solving and self organizing beings with amazing ability to adapt. We must give the body credit for the wisdom it possesses. Think connect and link to improve the quality of movement. Movement is rhythmic and dance like, not segmented and robotic. The rule I live by is to harmonize not roboticize.

I am headed up north to Canada for business this weekend. My blog is on hiatus as I am working on several DVD project with one being customized for an olympic team. After this weekend I will update my experience with several world class therapists.

With USATF National Champs behind us and the big-time European season about to kick off, elite track and field is in full swing. The average American fan probably wouldn't know that though. Heck, they might not have even known that Jamaica and the U.S. had their World Championship trials / National Championships last weekend. What to do? Michael Johnson thinks he has a solution. In this article MJ proposes 3 things to save and promote the sport of track and field:

1. Shorten competitions and offer only competitions that young fans will be interested in (with perhaps city vs city competitions)
2. Focus on the pure competition between the athletes rather than records
3. Attract more sponsors by loosening individual sponsorship restrictions

What do you think? Read the article and post thoughts to the forum.

The following piece from yesterday's NY Times sports page made me decide to write this. Someone needs to set the record straight. The former Mets pitching coach Rick Peterson, who for 20 years has pioneered biomechanic analysis of pitching motions, said that he shielded athletes from the physics behind what they do.

You can’t build a car and drive one at the same time,” Peterson said. “When you talk about how the brain affects athletic performance, that’s mostly right-brain activity. The physics is left-brain. If you get too analytical, you’re going to interfere with that process. I show my guys the film, but not the measurements.

I have no tolerance for gurus and shameless self promoters. This guy is both. I had to work this guy, both with the White Sox and the Mets. He is not what he claims to be. He is such a pioneer that twenty years ago with the White Sox he stated to me, my boss and the other pitching coaches that he did not believe in biomechanical analysis. He ...Keep Reading