Yesterday as I was working on some new training programs and
evaluating the past training cycle when I came across a “new” exercise that I
thought might solve a specific problem one of my athletes was having. The
dilemma in this case always is, will the new exercise do a better job than what
was being done before. It started me thinking that maybe I should keep the old
exercise and change the emphasis; make an adjustment to address the particular
issue. At the sake of making this more complicated than it is I thought I would
share my thought process. It is important to consider the athlete's psyche. The
athlete does not adapt well to changes so that weighed heavily in my
decision-making. When I looked more carefully at the new exercise I did not
think it was significantly better than the old exercise. In some ways the new
exercise was a bit of a wildcard coming out of left field, my past experience
with this type of situation was not positive. I had to ask myself was I
changing for the sake of change or would this make a significant positive
difference. The final decision was to stick with the old exercise and modify it
over the next few microcyles.
In summary when you you are thinking about making changes in exercise selection or training programs ask yourself the following:
Is change really needed or is it just something nice to do?
If you make the change and add something then what are you going
to take out?
Will the change make a significant difference?