It is Easy to Fall In the Trap

Family Update

Everyone is doing so well. My girls are on Spring Break this week. They have spent a couple nights at their grandparents and played with their cousin. Brennen is growing so fast. He is really starting to develop a cute personality. He smiles a lot and is starting to laugh a little. It is so fun seeing him develop his voice.

At the end off the week I will be attending a marketing conference. It is the biggest one of the year and I am excited to go- although I don't like that it is the same week as my girls week off. At least we will have half of the vacation to play and spend time together.

Speed Insiders Update

All Speed Insider Members, I have some great videos planned for you this month. There will be more than one video this month so be on the lookout! I have some important coaching and skill information I want to share with you.

Plus, I have a great interview for April's CD of the month. You will really enjoy it. This is going to be a fun month of information.

Last but not least, I have a special surprise for all Speed Insider Members. You will be receiving a FREE DVD valued at $40. It is my "Strength Through Movement Patterns DVD." It is a great foundational DVD that can be used for any level. It will give you some super information on warm ups and how to approach teaching strength training so it is simple and easy to implement with any program. So be on the look out for this Surprise Gift!

If you are not a Speed Insider Member yet and would like to try it FREE for 2 months you need to jump on over to http://www.speedinsiders.com/ and get signed up now. It's FREE and it gives you so many advantages.

It is Easy to Fall in the Trap...

It seems that every couple of years a new training system or philosophy about training comes out and we tend to overreact and jump on board with it. Well, I did just that for a short stint until I got back to my foundation of how I test things out. The new "Buzz" was no static stretching before exercising or playing in a competition. There is some truth to that but not all of it is correct.

For many years I followed a warm up system that involved Corrective Stretching prior to the workout or competition, but it was immediately followed by activation and dynamic warm up exercises. It just made sense to me and I always followed it. Then all of a sudden all this research came out that stretching before exercising was dangerous and bad for performance. I read much of the research and went against my normal instinct of really questioning it before I jump on board. So, I abandoned static stretching for about a year or so. I then started to realize that many of my athletes, including myself, needed to correct posture and length tension of the muscles before going into more intense movement. I immediately reinstated the corrective stretching back into my programs.

Here is the issue with stretching as I see it; performing only static stretching with no activation or dynamic warm up does very little to support the body for the higher intensity that it is going to go through. Secondly, performing long slow stretching for the entire body overly relaxes the body and doesn't activate the nervous system to be prepared for the higher levels of activity to come. The body needs to be aware and heightened so it can immediately perform at higher levels. Static stretching alone doesn't do this.

What I encourage is that the athletes follow a warm ups system that handles several aspects of muscles , joint, and nervous system preparedness.

1. First, take care of muscle knotting through foam rolling or stick work. This prepares the muscles by bringing some suppleness to it. It also allows the muscle to be stretch correctly.
2. The next phase of the warm up is the Corrective Stretching. This is a short time frame that I teach the athletes to use stretches in areas of their body that are overly tight and causing postural issues. I do not spend a long time on each stretch just enough so the athlete feels a regaining of length.
3. Then the athletes go through activation exercises to turn the muscles on and prepare the nervous system.
4. This is followed by dynamic mobility and running exercises. This dynamic running is a section that many of the well known strength coaches are starting to abandon because they feel the athletes don't do them well-TEACH THEM. It is our job as coaches to teach what we want done. I think the dynamic running or posture runs is an integral part of the warm up because it prepares the athletes for kinesthetic and proprioceptive awareness while moving at higher speeds and in different directions. Plus the stretch shortening cycle gets tuned in with the actions for the feet coming in contact with the ground on each step or stride.

Now, the warm I have outlined really takes little time and it is seamless from one aspect to the next. I actually have additional warm up phases I use to really cue in my athletes awareness and coordination factors. I will talk more about this at a later date.

As I stated earlier, it is easy to fall into the trap of the new research and new philosophy. I did and I was mad at myself for sometime because I got away from my principle of questioning until it is proven good or bad. Once I went back to that principle I immediately realized there were some flaws in the research and the reasoning behind what the new philosophy was.

Now that I am back on track and using a great warm up system my athletes and me are feeling good and moving great.

Quick Note: Movement prep has become a big term to describe warm up routines that are more geared toward gaining stability, mobility, and activation. It is a great concept and I use it all the time in our warm up system- but I don't like seeing coaches abandon the dynamic posture running and skipping in place of movement prep. I think you need both to do a better job during the warm up.

Yours in Speed,

Lee

PS: If you want to learn more about my warm systems and all the other training concepts I use, join Speed Insiders at http://www.speedinsiders.com/ Receive tons of info each month. Plus, try it out for 2 month FREE!

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