“The best athletes of the future are determined by those who receive the best of themselves in the present. Most athletes don’t realize how good they could be.” JD
This quote is on our website. I want everyone who steps through our doors to be able to look back on their career and feel good that they were the best they could have been. Of course everyone will look back and find things they could have done better. However, I do not want it to be from a lack of good strength and conditioning coaching.
When evaluating new clients both athlete and non athlete I am looking for wins. I tell my coaches that the real product we charge money for in coaching is time. We are trying to give the athlete more productive years of competition at the highest level by getting them fitter in a shorter period of time without injury. This also applies to general population. I saw an article that stated that most people today over 40 are frail. Frailty is defined as the recognizable state of increased vulnerability which leads to the inability to cope with every day or acute stressors. I do not want to be defined as frail and I do not want my client’s to be frail.
In the early years of an athlete’s career gains come fast. As athletic maturity starts to move along the window of opportunity to make gains becomes more difficult and also more valuable. After the young athlete gains the initial boost in strength and power the gains come slower, but what will separate the athlete from their competitors are the gains made after the initial youthful boost.
I usually find those early wins through what I call Tipping Point Fitness. What is it? Tipping Point Fitness is when a coach identifies a small, easily remedied issue that can be a game changer in performance for an athlete in sport. This also applies to general population.
Force x Distance/Time =Power, this equation is the physics of power.
Force: Strength is your ability to create a force. An example would be a deadlift, squat, dumbbell row, bench press.
Distance/Time=Velocity. This is your ability to have a high speed muscle contraction and coordinate a movement at a rapid rate of speed. Examples would be a vertical jump, broad jump, shot put, high jump. Power clean, Push press, Snatch. All of these have a high rate of velocity involved. These are also defined as power exercises.
Different movements require emphasis on different parts of this equation. All movement goes back to this equation in one aspect or another. Some sports require more hips, some more upper body. Some require longer duration of movement, some shorter. You can see the requirements of the sport reflected in the morphology of the athlete’s body. Look at an offensive lineman in football. They need huge amount of force production and power on an absolute basis for a very short period of time. Whereas a cyclist is lean with little upper body. This sport is a power to weight sport with most of the muscle used in the lower limbs. Their builds are very slight, but power to weight is very high.
The coach’s job is to determine where the athlete or client is on this spectrum and then determine the needs of the movement in their sport and where there are gaps in the athlete’s ability in these movements.
This is where Tipping Point Fitness comes into play. If in my evaluation I can find an issue that is preventing the athlete from improving an area of great importance I can gift the athlete with great improvement in a short amount of time. This is why I will not train any client without an evaluation. I cannot design a great program if I cannot see where we are starting from and where there may be issues.
So if all roads lead back to the equation I mentioned before, then where in the equation are there issues that could change performance in your athlete? Is it force, is it the rate of force development, movement quality, joint mobility, etc.? Is the force or velocity being scrubbed off because of a mobility issue? How can I dramatically improve the movement by identifying one of these issues?
So as a coach you need to understand the kinetic chain of a movement so you can identify where issues may arise. Let’s look at a high jump as an example. I am only going to look at the actual jump. The athlete’s goal is to take a forward body movement and transfer that force into a vertical movement, by planting one foot and changing the movement from horizontal to vertical. So I would start from the foot and work my way up the kinetic chain. I would look at the foot first. Are there strength issues in the planting of the foot? Is it ankle stability or mobility? Is it knee stability or mobility, hip stability or mobility? Remember during the planting of the foot until the lift off all of these components come into play. As we move up the chain we look at back extension, shoulder mobility, core strength, even mobility in the neck. If you start discussing this with the athlete you will find that they may already know where the issue lies. Obviously some of these components have a greater weighting on performance and height of the jump. However, if I can find one or more of these components, that when added to better overall athletic capability, that can be improved with a small amount of training, the difference can be being on the podium or not.
I always look for tipping point fitness first when developing early designs of programs for my athletes. It can add up to easy wins or minimize injury risk. It will also increase buy in from your athletes and clients. This is what experience in coaching and good critical thinking can do for an athlete or anyone starting a new training program.
I want my athletes and clients to be able to look back and say “I did everything I could and I was as good as I could have been “.
Truth in Fitness,
Jacques DeVore, CSCS