Author: Vernon Gambetta
NY Times Injuries in Baseball Article
Yesterday NY Times had the following article on the front page tiltled “Increasing Pace of Injuries” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/sports/baseball/07injuries.html?_r=1&th&emc=th I am formulating a detailed reply with specific ideas, recommendations and further questions for consideration. I will state though that this problem is bigger than baseball. The injury rate in most major professional sports needs to be addressed; it is more than a baseball problem.
Tim Nokes Quote
"50% of what we know is wrong; the problem is that we do not know which 50% it is". Tim Nokes, South African sport scientist who has challenged many of the sacred cows of exercises physiology including Max VO2.
The Paterno Rule
Dr Dave Joyner MD one of our GAIN Faculty members shared with us the Paterno Rule during his presentation. Dave was an All –American lineman who played for Paterno. The Paterno rule is simple – You remember the last thing you do, a very simple statement with complex implications for both cognitive and motor learning. My good friend and colleague, Gary Winkler one shared with me a similar concept. His idea was that the last thing you do in a training session will be how you will begin the next training session. The implication being that if you want them to start the next session hammered and beat up then end the current session hammered and beat up. I always try to end a training session with something light quick and explosive.
2009 GAIN Apprentorship – A wrap-up
It has been a week and half since we ended the Apprentorship. I have been going through withdrawal ever since. What a great experience. I think Joe P. http://joestrainingroom.blogspot.com/2009/06/great-experience.html and Tracy http://ironmaven.blogspot.com/2009/06/my-09-gain-experience.html nailed it on their respective blogs. It is hard for me to find words for how well it went. Someone asked me if it met my expectations’, it exceeded my expectations and I always set my expectations sky high. Now we have set a standard for each succeeded year. I am starting work on that now. We had a great faculty that hope to make even better. For those of you considering att ending next year be sure to get your applications in early, space will become more limited each year. I feel confident that last year we got a good start out of blocks to the beginning of the Athletic Development revolution this year we accelerated rapidly to take a giant step forward. We had a good mix of didactic sessions, practical sessions and discussion groups in interest groups. The days were long and productive, culminating in the lobby bar with discussions sometime too long into the night. Just like in college where everyone sat around in their rooms and talked this is where many ideas came together and future alliances were formed. Once again thanks to everyone who helped to make it special, my wife, Kelvin Giles who came a couple of days early to help me get my act together, the faculty, especially Jim Radcliffe who flew all night from Oregon, presented for six hours and flew home. The staff at the hotel and KICS International were very helpful and the food was very good (Always a plus). Our sponsors Perform Better, Finis, Lifeline, TrainTrak, Lane Gainer, Performance Dynamics and Vasa. Can’t wait until next year!
Happy Fourth of July
I am ashamed to say the answer to quiz – What country is this? is the United States. On the day we celebrate our independence I think it is a good time to take a few minutes to reflect on our freedoms we have and wonder why such alarming things could be happening in our society, especially to our children. The human resource is our most precious resource; within that resource children represent our future. We should do everything we can to insure that their future will be for a better life than we have now. Not in terms of material things but in terms of health and education. The tools they we will need to continue to make this country what it is. Al Qaeda or terrorists will not bring us down, we will do it to ourselves. We cannot continue the self indulgent waste of precious human and natural resources. It starts with each of you individually, what each of you are doing to make you home, your family, your community a better place to live. We can all play a part in making the world a better place by making each of our individual worlds a better place. If need inspiration and ideas on how to do this read Blessed Unrest – How the Largest Social Movement in History is Restoring Grace, Justice and Beauty to the World by Paul Hawken. Decide what you can do and take action, don’t wait. Increase your awareness of how YOU can make a difference. On a lighter note today I am going to spent my Fourth of July finishing the biography of Winston Churchill I am reading while listening to Flaco Jimenez on my I Phone. This evening I am going to watch the 40th anniversary DVD of Woodstock with additional footage never before seen footage. Started out with a nice hour and twenty minuute bike ride. If that does not represent the self indulgent American what does?
Mindless
Two days this week I watched a football team finish their weight workout with 15 to 20 minute of “Abs” all on the ground, just counting out reps, no coaching, no concentration, no intensity! Mindless work is not training. To quote a grizzled old football coach “when I see players lying around on the ground or sitting they are not training for the game.” Last time I checked the game is played on your feet, if you are on the ground you are beat! Last week at the GAIN Apprentorship Jim Radcliffe presented on the Oregon Football training program from A to Z. It was awesome, systematic sequential and progressive. The only drills done on the ground were drills to teach you to get up quickly. The proof is in the pudding. Train with a purpose, make it game like with intensity, concentration and effort.
Quiz – What Country is this?
It is number one in prison population (726 prison inmates per 100,000 people); first in teen pregnancies, drug use, child hunger, poverty, illiteracy, obesity, diabetes, use of antidepressants, income disparity, violence, firearms death, military spending, hazardous waste production, recorded rapes, and the poor quality of its schools. Only one of two countries where the schools need metal detectors – what is the other country?
SAID Principle
Tim Sullivan wrote the following in response to my Rules for Robots post from yesterday: My understanding is if you keep bending it like a credit card or hotel card eventually it will break or law of repetitive motion… to this rule only applies to a small amount of the training program, when heavy superficial external loads are place on the body… to this is another way of saying isolate them out. Of late I keep hearing this law of repetitive motion quoted. Who wrote this law? Sounds like another guru platitude. The body is not rigid piece of plastic, nor is it a machine. These kind of inane comparisons and analogies do not do justice to the body. The body is designed to solve moment problems, sure it adapts to certain patterns if repeated whether they are loaded or unloaded. Think of a stoop worker in the fields? The body is highly adaptive. In sport situations and in fact life and work situations that are highly repetitive that is why we find appropriate means to strengthen and lengthen. Sure there are time when it beaks, that’s life. A good training program that is mutli-joint, multi plane, proprioceptively demanding and mindful will address this. I believe Logan and McKinney addressed this on page 149 of their book Kinesiology. “The mature athlete tends to have a posture which is related to his particular sport if he has trained for years to become expert at his specific position or event. The reason for this phenomenon is the fact that the body tends to adjust or adapt to the various stresses or demands imposed upon as a result of prolonged muscular activity. Wallis and Logan have called this the SAID Principle: SAID is an acronym for Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands.” In my book nothing more needs to said (If in doubt go to Logan & McKinney, they have stood the test of time. PS Tm, I wish GAIN was sponsored by Honda.