"FIGHTING WORDS II"

Objective: Power Endurance

Warm up: 1/3 mile tire drag (135# tire)

Training:

(1) Row 3000m

(2) 5x Rope Climb

(3) 5 Rounds
10x Burpees
20x Sledge Hammer hits

Comments:

I had a long discussion with Jannine this morning about the value of yoga, pilates, stretching, massage and other "movement" type activities to people and especially athletes.

Jannine, like many of the people I punish in the gym, is a strong ,accomplished athlete - she spends her winters backcountry skiing, and summers biking. But she has friends who love yoga, massage, etc. who tell her that she runs the danger of being all tight and bound up as she gets older if she doesn't work on her flexibility and mobility now. She's worried about it.

Most strength and conditioning coaches ignore yoga, and other flexibility and movement activities in favor of conditioning. Indeed, several studies have been published lately about the hazards of being too flexible to performance.

Two strength coached who do believe in this stuff, however, is Mark Verstegen of Athletes' Performance and Mike Boyle of Boston College. Both are followers of Physical Therapist Gray Cook, who wrote "Athletic Body in Balance" and developed the "Functional Movement Screen," which evaluates seven "fundamental" movements according to Cook:

-Squat
-Step
-Lunge
-Reach
-Leg Raise
-Pushup for trunk control
-Rotational Stability

Some of these tests asses flexiblity, but most asses "proper" movement and stability.

At Athletes' Performance, which trains elite, professional team-sport athletes, every athlete is given the functional movement screen before training begins.

Verstegen believes along with Cook, that correcting these movement patters can increase performance, and decrease injuries. Practically, during workouts at Athletes' Performance, athletes will perform a tri-set of exercises - one of which will be a stretch or movement drill. For example, during my mentorship at the LA Athletes' Performance, I watched a group of major league baseball players do front squats, pull ups, and a squatting/stretching drill in one tri-set.

Cook believes that "functional movement" is the foundation of athletic potential. He describes an "overpowered" athlete, who scores poorly on mobility and stability tests, but very high o power production in the weightroom or playing field.

"The overpowered athlete is not necessarily too strong;" writes Cook, "her ability to generate power exceeds her ability to move freely. This athlete needs to improve movement patterns while maintaining her current level of power."

Cook continues that as movement patterns and stability improves, the overpowered athlete may not see any tangible benefit on the playing field or mountain - but injury prevention has improved, and he or she is building a foundation for untapped performance.

It should be noted that Cook praises and recommends yoga, pilates and massage as ways to increase stability and flexibility.

I was in good "shape" when I mentored at Athletes' Performance, but totally bombed the functional movement screen and was pulled aside by the Athletes' Performance coaches to demonstrate poor movement patterns for others.

It's hard to describe doing the functional movement screen - but it is hard to perform the exercises correctly. In fact, the Athletes' Performance coach said only one person, Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush from USC passed the screen on his first time through.

At Mountain Athlete I need to maximize the time I have with my athletes and I've evolved to the point where I spend every minute working to make them stronger and better conditioned. I reason that the best thing I can do for my athletes' performance and durablity is simply make them stronger.

But, Jannine's concern today does have me thinking again about proper movement patterns, and may result in us working in movement drills to our programming.

- Rob Shaul

The sledge is very metabolic.

The rope never gets easy.