The latest buzzword is corrective exercise. Is corrective exercise the latest fad like “drawing in “ was a few years ago? What exactly is corrective exercise? I think I know, but it is a misleading concept. What exactly are you correcting? It sounds to me like another reductionist approach to the human body based on pseudo scientific principles and marketing. The exercises that I see labeled a [...]

When people post video of an exercise or a description of a workout that is just a snapshot of a feature length movie. The snapshot has no context, Where? When? How? Who? Most importantly of all – Why? I notice when I do presentations and put a workout on the screen people will frantically scramble to write it down before I go to the next screen. The same with the video clips. Everyone wants cop [...]

To me coaching is all about connections. In training my goal is always to facilitate connections of the various parts of the body. Connecting the foot to the knee, the knee to the hip, the hip to the shoulder the shoulder to the elbow and the wrist. Help the athlete to make these connections consciously at first and subconsciously as skills are automated. These connections are there, they need to [...]

If you are an overhead athlete, a thrower, tennis player, swimmer, volleyball player etc. you need to use strengthening exercises that involve overhead movements. This is another myth that seems to pervade the exercise community and has definitely sprinted in to the athletic development community. You need to pay close attention to how you get overhead. You must get hip to the shoulder. Cheat and [...]

No overhead lifting. When squatting do not let the knees go past the toes. Keep spine neutral. Draw in to activate TA. And on and on and on, bla, bla bla. Don’t fall into this trap, these are all rules made to be broken. They are all based on false assumptions. They will work if you live, work and play in phone booth. As humans and athletes we do not. We live in a proprioceptively demanding grav [...]

This weekend I had the chance to speak with Coach Loren Seagrave on his thoughts about absolute strength. Loren is a former LSU sprint coach, founder of Velocity Sport Performance and coach of some of the fastest individuals in the world. I've had the privilege of doing at least one speaking engagement with Loren each month for the past couple months and I've been able to pick his brain on topic [...]

I read this yesterday. After the initial couple of chapters pointed at the jolly jogger I found it quite interesting. I think the authors do an outstanding job of taking current scientific research and making it understandable. Really enjoyed the parts on muscle soreness and recovery, hydration, lactate, central governor theory and the immune system. The authors are way out of their element when [...]

My biggest issue with the corrective exercise stuff, as all the bright folks who responded to the post also stated, is that any movement/exercise can be corrective. I think too many of the "experts" have been spewing too much pseudo rehabilitation stuff and now everyone is over-thinking/over-correcting symptoms and playing the role of therapist. I thought exercise in general was theraputic and p [...]

Remedial Education Exercises. Elastic Power and Stiffness. Acute Transmutation. Yes the 60s life was good for Poland as a great interaction between the weightlifting community, athletics, and sports medicine. Now that the rush for blueprints for polish boxes is creating a firestorm, the reality is we need to see what they were doing precisely to deal with the shear amount of lower leg training. I [...]

Coaching cues? Do they work? Who are they for, the visitors of the guru coach or the athlete? When is too much feedback. When is a sit down explanation useful? When is observation of a fellow athlete or film necessary? I don't have the answers, but my questions are good ones as I am convinced that cues are often too complicated or vague. Many times you can't coach something that is training or [...]