Functional training is training. All training is functional, it is just that some training rates higher on a continuum of function than others. If you are not sure how to make your training more functional here are a few tips that should guide you. This not rocket science, I think you will see when you analyze successful long term athletic development programs that all these elements appear in som [...]

This is a list of books that are in my library that I suggest everyone interested in Athletic Development should read.Historical WorksBunn, John. (1955) Scientific Principles of Coaching. New York, New York: Prentice Hall, Inc.Dintiman, George B. What Research Tells The Coach About Sprinting. AAHPER, Washington, D.C. 1974Doherty, Ken. Track & Field Omnibook (Fourth Edition). Los Altos, CA. Tafnews [...]

Richard MacLeish wrote me the following reply to yesterday’s post (his question are in blockquote).How do you know what exercises are going to help a specific function?Learn the demands of the sport and the position, know the athlete. I understand the rational, but I also see that the reason the soccer coach went to the strength coach was because he lacked the knowledge to help his players get s [...]

Happy New Year - 2009 begins my 40th year of coaching. Sometimes it seems like yesterday that I started and sometimes it feels like a century ago. The other day when I was swimming I was reflecting on the way things were in 1969 versus how they are now, it was certainly a different and simpler world in many respects. Please do not take this as an old man reflecting on the good old days. Everything [...]

I just found out yesterday that we should stop doing rotational medicine ball movements because they are bad for your back. Now that I have recovered from the initial shock I am trying to figure out what I am going to do to train the athletes I work with, the programs I consult with and how do I explain to the thousands of athlete’s that I have coached over the years that everything we were [...]

I was sent an article written by Ken Mannie, Strength and Conditioning coach at Michigan State entitled Traditional vs. Functional: Balancing the Scales. What is the difference between traditional training and functional training or traditional strength training and functional strength training? Is there a difference? What scales are we trying to balance? Let start with a definition - Functional [...]

Defining the Field of Athletic Development - Where We Are NowWhy am I writing this? Who am I to tell you how to train or rehab your athletes? How can I have the impudence to question some of the hallowed concepts of training and performance, even question sports science? I have consistently questioned much of what passes as conventional wisdom in regards to training and rehab and I have the audaci [...]

The Functional Movement Screen is an assessment that got a lot of heat a few years when Vern and Mike Boyle argued about it's effectiveness. My stance is closer to Vern's as Mike's responses were not very convincing. I was exposed to the FMS years ago when manuals were actually in paper format and experts were older than college graduates. During that time I was reading everything in the office [...]

SLD are perhaps the most overrated exercises that continue to annoy me as kinetics and kinematics are clear. Enough with the thoracolumbar fascia rehashing as that system is mainly structural. My first experience with the exercise was in the early 90s watching glide style shot athletes use it for their balance work. SLD is not a strength exercise as single leg contact decreases the balance point [...]

Yesterday when I was swimming I got this profound thought. Before I share the thought let me tell you what I think triggered it. I have been preparing for the GAIN Apprentorship which begins next Thursday, that coupled with my with my visit with Nort Thornton last week had me looking over some old material from my first several years of coaching and some material from college (1964-68). The though [...]