Directed Attention - Part 2

If you missed Part 1 - check it out here.Part 2:  Where to direct attention?

Nidiffer’s “Attentional and Interpersonal Style” shows the differences in directed attention.  Athletes should take note of how the attention choices interact with each other and figure out where to direct attention:

The ability to control attention is something that has become a hot topic in society.  In fact our society has become obsessed with focus.  Many believe the world of smart phones, tablets, and social media have created multi-tasking jack of all trades, but masters of none.  The lack of focus has created an ADHD epidemic with 5.2 million or 8.2% of American children aged 3-17 being diagnosed.  The ability to direct attention to needed actions seems to be getting harder and harder for our youth.

While the inability to focus continues to garner attention, athletes need to have a strong understanding of what is needed to perform.  There may be times to be very broad and internal with attention, but have the ability to change within moments to being narrow and broad—think a point guard who goes from scanning the floor to shooting free throws.

Athletes need to have a good grasp on their internal focus.  Often it’s imperative for athlete’s to direct their attention to what they can do rather than what they can’t do.  An athlete’s ability to internally direct their attention to needed actions rather than distractions is ultimately what determines concentration.

What are you going to direct your attention to today?  How can you make sure you’re in control of your attention?  Are you directing your attention to the steps needed for success or simply the end result?  These are questions to ask yourself as you continue to learn how to control where your attention is directed.  So the next time someone tells you, “FOCUS”, think about your attention and where to direct it.

Directed Attention - Part 1

Part 1:  What’s in a word?Focus!  Your teacher, coach, or parents have all snapped that word at you at some point, or a lot of points.  The word focus has become the standard to garner attention.  However, the word itself has become dull, unoriginal, and lost meaning.  Focus also has many different meanings, which makes it even less potent.

The word itself has become a bugaboo for athletes in particular.  Many athletes think they have to completely “lock in” to perform, which often leads to tension and self-doubt in ability.  Focusing solely on raising intensity and energy is often the wrong place for athletes to focus.  Additionally, the idea to just “focus” is so vague that athlete’s don’t believe they have control over their ability to do it.

The definition of focus, which is often used as a verb in athletics, is defined as one’s ability to direct attention.  When working with athletes, I often talk about directing attention rather than simply focusing.  When the athlete understands they can direct attention to a needed action they become more in control of what they need to do and have a better grasp of how to take ownership of their attention.

Many athletes become so focused on the result that they lose the ability to direct their attention to their needed process.  The ability for an athlete to direct their attention to things in their control, rather than things that are out of their control, often determines an athlete’s ability to perform in the moment.  By simply “focusing” and not directing attention, the athlete loses control over their own focus.  Giving them something to direct their attention to will allow them to get back to the moment when they drift awry.

Directing attention to controllables such as effort, attitude, and self-talk often give the athlete the best opportunity to succeed.

Next week in Part 2, find out how to direct and control your focus!

The Art of Coaching vs. The Science of Programming: Which is More Important?

A few years ago I traveled up to New Jersey to attend a fitness+business seminar. At one point, the speaker of the main event got on the topic of program design vs. coaching. In other words, the act of sitting down and writing a program specific to an individual signing up at the gym, versus the act of running the person through said program on the gym floor. The speaker paused in the middle of his power point, and commanded everyone in the room to perform a quick scenario:

"Everyone turn and look at the person seated next to you. Now, say to them, 'Put your left hand in the air. Good. Hold it there for a count of one one thousand. Put your hand back down now.' 

Congratulations, you just ran a training session! Yes, it may have been only one rep of one exercise, but see how easy that was to tell them what to do and have it perform it? The reality is, the most valuable part of the whole training process is the program design, not the actual training. It takes much more expertise to be able to construct a program rather than watch over someone as they perform sets and reps."

He then went on to say that the highest-level, expert trainers in his gym are the ones writing the programs, and the "lower-level" trainers are the ones who actually run the clients through the programs.

Fast forward a bit, I was having a conversation with Chris, one of the old SAPT coaches, about this very occurrence/speech that took place at the seminar. He and I came to the simple conclusion that the aforementioned speaker's thought process (program design being vastly more important/valuable than coaching) is egregiously wrong*.

Sure, it's one thing to tell someone to lift their hand up in the air and put it back down. But are we joking ourselves by using that as an example of the average motor skill a new client has to learn?

What good is it if you write a "perfect" program, with a flawless progression of  intensities, volume, loading, and exercise selection if the trainer responsible for administering the program can't properly teach the movement patterns? You can do a "pushup," sure. But then you can do a pushup, and receive infinitely more value from the exercise by actually doing it correctly. This goes for everything ranging from squats and deadlifts to chinups, spidermans, and planks.

Is the trainer's job really that "easy," to simply count reps for someone as they do an exercise, providing no other feedback other than when to start and stop?

Yeah, it is that easy I suppose......If you don't care at all about the safety of the client, and could care less whether he or she receives the most out of the time, effort and money they are investing.

Coaching and guiding a person through correct technique takes time, patience, discernment, and tact on the part of the coach. Some people respond best to touch. Others are audible learners. Others visual. And others are kinesthetic learners.

And unless you live in some sort of magical Wonderland, the technique of someone learning a new exercise is going to be far from pretty. Heck it will probably take days for them to get it right. And of course it will. They are learning something new. It's up to the coach to guide them through this process.

Not to mention, I can't tell you how many times an athlete or an adult client walks in the door (right after I wrote them their next month of programming, of course), only to say any of the following:

-I sprained my MCL two days ago, so I can't do anything on that leg today.  -I just found out from the doctor I have spondylolisthesis, can you modify my program for me so I can still train today? -My shoulder has been bothering me from pitching too much, what can I do to help it today? -I just had an AWFUL day at the office, I was stuck in traffic for over two hours, my back hurts, and am having a family crisis at home, can we modify things a bit?

In each of the scenarios above, the coach can and should be able to modify the program on the fly, providing the person with a solid training effect but yet remaining prudent with regards to the red flag(s) at hand.

Is the ability to write a good resistance training program a unique skillset, requiring due diligence and an astute mind on the part of the program writer, and thousands of hours to master? Absolutely. But so does coaching. The two go hand in hand. They must.

I guess I get pretty fired up about this because there are so many coaches and trainers out there who can practically recite an exercise physiology textbook, or Vladimir Issurin's Block Periodization, and yet cannot teach someone how to do a proper lunge, deadlift, or row. Or maybe it's just that they get too impatient when someone doesn't pick up on a new motor pattern right away, or they're lazy, or simply don't even care. I'm not really sure.

Heck, just last week I was lifting at the local commercial gym (sometimes I go for a change of scenery), and I'm not kidding you when I say that a trainer was having her client do over a hundred sit-ups, all the while while slouching against the back extension machine, typing on her phone!

AAARRRGGGGHHHH!

But yeah, I guess all that matters is program writing.....

In fact, just the other day I was speaking with one of our interns and I asked him what he felt were a few things (good or bad) he had received from his experience at SAPT so far. He quickly responded with,

"Definitely one of the most valuable things has been seeing how you all coach people. The cues you utilize, and how you prod them into correct positioning. That's just not something I've learned from all the textbooks I've studied."

To conclude, I'm certainly not saying that program design should be thrown by the wayside. On the contrary, there are many people out there with training certifications that, as my wife recently put it, "Couldn't program their way out of a wet paper bag." But try not to get so obsessed with the "science" side of the equation that you completely miss the reason you wrote the program in the first place.

*In case some of you reading know who this anonymous speaker is - after all, he is quite popular - know that my intent is not to bash him. I actually have the highest respect for him and he has influenced (for the better) many of the things I do today at SAPT. I was simply using this story as a segue into the post. And hey, it's O.K. to disagree with others in the industry**

**Unless it's me.

A Confidence Booster

I read a great article on EliteFTS the other day which you can find here… A Case for Bullying .  I strongly advise you read it as it really struck a chord with me, although judging by the comments section some readers REALLY missed the point of the article.  Anyways, it inspired my post for this week not really because I was bullied but because of what weight training and powerlifting has done for me and what I feel it can do for younger kids and adults alike. Throughout the entire time I was in school I always had a good bit of friends, I was never the kid who felt so pushed away by other people they had to go eat their lunch in the bathroom (although I can empathize with those kids).  However, in elementary school I was a short fat kid who’s nickname amongst friends was Louie because I looked EXACTLY like the kid from the cartoon show Life with Louie.  Again at no point were people outwardly mean to me about it but I was still really self-conscious about the way I looked.

Onto middle school, once I was here I had lost the fat but gained a crazy amount of acne…. It was gross.  Again, I had a good bit of friends and no one really outwardly made fun of me about it (maybe it was my short temper who knows) but again I was really self-conscious about it.

Onto high school, now I’ve lost the fat, lost the acne, and started doing pull-ups, pushups, and bodyweight squats until it burned.  Only problem was I never really hit that growth spurt I was looking for.  I was standing at a whopping 5’7” on a good day (which I still am today).  Again, nothing that I was teased about but I was really self-conscious about being relatively shorter than a lot of the people I hung out with.

My point is not for you to feel bad for me because I don’t want you too that would be ridiculous.  My point is that all kids or adults no matter what circle of life they come from can feel bad about themselves or that they’ll never measure up to other people.  However, there has to be an outlet for these kids to make them feel better about themselves and be able to gain self-confidence and a way for them to be able to say “I honestly don’t care what you think about me”.  I feel like a lot of parents first instinct is sports which is great and works a great deal of the time.  It gives them an outlet for their aggression, makes them feel part of a team, and teaches them that some days you lose and some days you win.  What about the other kids?  The other kids who end up not making the team and ultimately feel even more isolated.  THEY NEED TO WEIGHT TRAIN!

When I got to college I read Arnold, the Education of a Bodybuilder and there it was the epiphany I was looking for my whole life.  I read that book cover to cover in two days, I wrote down what he ate and how he trained and I did it.  Somewhere along the line my confidence went through the roof, I got bigger and stronger and for the first time in my life I was able to truly not care what other people thought of me.  The only thing I cared about was how to get bigger and stronger.  I was no longer concerned with the people who didn’t matter in my life and their opinions of my clothes, hair, personality, job, etc.

Why did weight training work so well for me in that respect?  Because unlike most things, weight training gives you tangible results all the time; every month I saw myself becoming bigger and stronger and I loved it.  I played basketball my whole life and worked hard it but it was very hard for me to see gains because it was so hard to measure it against things.  But, weight training is something I could track each and every week.

DCIM100SPORT

I know I’ve kind of rambled a bit but the whole point I’m driving at is more kids should weight train and by kids I’m talking about 10 year olds and up.  Please don’t gasp, if you have a problem with 10 year olds weight training; then I have a bone to pick with you at a later date.  Are you concerned with your kid’s well-being and self-esteem?  For that matter are you concerned with your own well-being and self-esteem?  If you are I STRONGLY suggest you start a resistance training program.  I promise that you will be better off for it.

Since high school I knew that I wanted to work with kids in some fashion.  I had a lot of great coaches and teachers that helped me become a better person.  For me the best way to return the favor was by becoming a strength coach and showing kids how to become stronger.  Part of my job is to help kids become stronger and better for their sport.  Honestly though that is NOT my main priority.  My main priority is to help every kid who walks in our doors to feel better about themselves physically, mentally, and emotionally and to truly not care about what someone says about them or thinks about them.

And in case anyone is wondering what i look like now...

You Might Have a Bad Strength Coach or Trainer If....

I’ve had many conversations with family, friends, and random people about general fitness and what they should be doing.  For the most part people tend to be know-it-alls and really aren’t seeking my professional opinion.  All they really want is affirmation that what they are currently doing is correct.  When I go on to tell them that standing on a BOSU ball doing dumbbell curls actually does nothing for their physical fitness level they get very defensive with me. Maybe they’re actually angry about the fact they spent a bunch of money on a useless piece of equipment, who knows?  The other people who are actually interested in my advice tend to tell me they want to get a personal trainer or a strength coach to oversee their training.  This realization they come to is a mixed bag for me.  On one hand I’m excited for them that they are willing to invest their time and hard earned money in their personal health.  On the other hand I’m weary of their decision.  The reason being is that there are so many terrible trainers out there that these honest hardworking people are going to end up flushing their money away.  I refuse to sugarcoat things for anyone which is why I tell them exactly this if they tell me they want a trainer/coach.  They respond with “well, how do I figure out if the trainer/coach is good or not?”  Great question!  My answer USED TO BE to make sure they have a bachelor’s degree in something exercise related and to make sure they have their CSCS or CPT through the NSCA.  As I’ve gone on in my career I have come to understand how WRONG I was.  Since I’ve been a strength coach I’ve found that neither of these things mean you are a good trainer (it doesn’t mean you’re a bad one either, I myself have both).  This lesson has been learned through life’s greatest teaching tool, experience. Some of the best fitness professionals I know have neither of these.  So, what do I tell people now?  Honestly, I try and keep it short but the following are some things you should find out before enlisting the aid of a trainer or coach.  Without further ado; You Might Have a Bad Strength Coach or Trainer If….

• You don’t see any pull up, row, squat, deadlift, or pushup variations (because these aren’t functional movements right?)

• They use the word “functional” or “core” more than 5 times within the first 5 minutes of meeting them (“What we’re going to do for your first session is get you up on this wobbly lookin’ platform and have you squat for 2 sets of 15 reps to really help your “functional” balance and to really get you to engage your “core”.  Don’t worry about that pain in your knee, that’s perfectly normal.”)

• There is any type of bicep curl at the beginning of your program (just trying to sculpt the guns BRO!)

• They have you do a cable row while squatting on a BOSU ball (two birds with one stone right?)

• They have you perform a snatch without teaching you how to goblet squat correctly (DUDE! It’s all about being explosive.  Forget about the back pain, correct form is for SISSYS’!!!)

• They have never heard of a goblet squat (I feel like it has something to do with Harry Potter, am I close?)

• They have no idea who the following people are (comic book villains?)

-Mel Siff -Tudor Bompa -Leo Matveyev -Yuri Verkhoshansky

• They ever put you on a BOSU ball or wobble board and try to get you to pistol squat holding a med ball over your head (Hey guy! I thought I told you, we are trying to functionally engage your core)

• They look like this guy…

• Honestly, it’ll just save us some time if I just say… They have you do anything on an unstable surface (I know I know, we get it… It’s all about being functional and engaging your core)

• Their idea of a good deadlift looks like this… (We want to take your hamstrings and glutes completely out of it.  It’s all about using your lower back and lifting the bar with a jerking twisting motion.)

 [vsw id="YyhHDQ7X0dA" source="youtube" width="425" height="344" autoplay="no"]

• Your workout consists mostly of ladder drills and cone drills (It doesn’t matter that you can’t squat 15lbs correctly; it’s all about working on your AGILITY!)

• You get thrown on a bench press yet still can’t do a bodyweight pushup correctly (If you can’t bench press 315lbs you will never be a good athlete…. HAHAHA! Sorry, I couldn’t keep a straight face with that one)

• They coach you on how to turn your pinky up at the top of a bicep curl (FOR THE LAST TIME! We are trying to sculpt the guns!!!)

• They tell you that the only way to get fit is to get on the treadmill everyday (Strength? What do you need strength for? Lifting weights is just going to get you bulky and then that muscle will turn to fat when you’re older.  I see you have an awesome valgus collapse going on in your knees and your feet have no arch whatsoever… Sweet! Let’s go run for 30 minutes on the treadmill!)

I’m running short on time, that’s all I can think of for right now.  RELAX internet warriors; I’m only 99% serious, HA!

If anyone has any other ones they want to share then feel free to post it to the comments section.

Q & A: How to Write Resistance Training Programs, Part 2: Coaching

Q. One thing I was wondering, and maybe it’d be a topic to write about … how do you come up with workouts?? Do you make stuff up?? Have a “grab-bag” of moves and pull out of that?? Borrow and modify from other trainers??  I always wonder where trainers come up with new ideas.A. For those who missed Part 1, I discussed the importance of training yourself on a regular basis. Let's move on to #2 on the list....

2a. Spend Time Coaching

I don't care if it's your mom, your coworker, or your friend who wants some help getting ready for Spring Break. Just start coaching someone. The best coaches (and, thus, those typically good at writing programs), are those that have spent thousands of hours in the trenches, coaching the heck out of people.

Chris Romanow comes to mind. If you've never trained at SAPT, you're probably asking who Chris Romanow is. He hasn't published any books or articles on training, he doesn't have a Twitter, he doesn't a keep a fitness blog, doesn't send out a newsletter, and he hasn't produced any fitness products.

Yet he is one of the best coaches in the industry, hands down. He can coach people and design training plans better than anyone I know. Heck, the man could teach a freshly born giraffe how to perform a solid overhead squat.

And you know what Chris received his college degree in? NOT Exercise Science, or even in a related field. He became a great program designer, and an even better coach, not by reading some textbooks, taking a few exams, and receiving a diploma for it, but by coaching his butt off, twelve hours a day, for years on end.

He was forced to learn how to teach kids the squat pattern (including hundreds who aren't genetically gifted and couldn't pick it up, even after the hundredth six attempt), how to teach a good pushup to mothers who never weight trained in their lives, show an unmotivated 12-year old softball player how to rotate through her hips instead of her lumbar spine, to teach an arrogant 17-year old that no, he really can't really squat 400lbs to depth.

And to do this over, and over, and over, and over again with people from all walks of life and varying genetic predispositions.

I, on the other hand, did study Kinesiology/Exercise Science in college. I also had many colleagues right alongside me doing the same thing. Going to lectures, learning about muscle insertions and attachments, the sliding filament theory, force-velocity curves, motor unit force potentiation, glycolysis, yadda yadda yadda.

And you know what I find myself telling people on a weekly basis? I would trust Chris with coaching me, and writing ME a program, a thousand times more than having one of my fellow colleagues (with a B.S. in Exercise Science) coach me or write me a workout plan. No question about it. And no offense to those of you from Virginia Tech who may be reading; it just is how it is.

As strength coach Mike Robertson once put it, "Some of the best coaches in S&C are the ones you’ve never heard of, and never hear from. They’re tucked away in some remote part of the country, just kicking ass and taking names."

That's Chris. And any talent I have at writing programs and coaching others, I owe in large part to him.

My point in all that is that learning the "science of training" is completely different from practicing it in real life. And no graduate degree or Ph. D. can replace time invested learning it first-hand (wasn't it Malcolm Gladwell who articulated it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in something?). It's very difficult to become proficient at program design without putting in your dues coaching others. And you can't truly appreciate this until you experience it for yourself.

I can't tell you how many times I've written what I thought to be a "perfect program" only to see it fail miserably upon implementation. And, unless you work with Olympic-level athletes, you're going to have to help countless people with quite poor movement quality (yes, even "higher level" athletes) learn to hip hinge, squat, pick things up off the ground, press things, and pull things. Correctly. And they aren't usually going to get it the first time.

Coaching teaches you a lot of things. As long as you pay attention, remain awake, stay astute, and make an effort to truly observe the feedback you're receiving (both verbal and nonverbal), you'd be surprised at how much your clients can teach you about yourself. And you will then learn to be a better program designer.

I remember, upon first becoming a personal trainer in college, I decided to take one of my clients (a soccer player) through a few sets of front squats. Easy peasy, right? Except that his knees persistently collapsed inward during the bottom half of his squat. So me, being the brilliant trainer I was, continually barked at him to drive his knees out. Yet he couldn't do it.

Was he deaf? No. Was he stupid? Of course not. Yet me, in all my trainer awesomeness, thought the only way to get him to align his knees over his second toe was to tell him to do it.

Now, don't get me wrong, on many occasion this can fix the issue. However, what I didn't realize at the time was that structural restrictions in this guy's ankle and/or hip could possibly prevent his knees from tracking correctly, despite how hard he tried to. I had no clue what implications closed-chain ankle dorsiflexion had during a front squat, or that poor hip internal rotation combined with flexion could force his knees inward in the bottom, or that sucky gluteals wouldn't allow him to power the movement correctly.

And, naturally, didn't know that I might have to program these into his workouts in order to help him squat correctly. This forced me to research and learn.

Should squats be in the program of most people? Yes, duh. However, what good is it if they can't do it proficiently? (Hint: they probably can't, at least until they're coached on it.) You need to be able to write their program so they can receive a training effect in the meantime, while at the same time helping them get from Point A to Point B.

It's the hundreds of hours you spend teaching a wide variety of people - coordinated and uncoordinated, conditioned and deconditioned, male and female, young and old, hobbit, dwarf, and wizard - to do things correctly that make you a better coach and program designer. Teaching and coaching elite level athletes is easy. Your only job there is basically to ensure they don't injure themselves under your watch (now, increasing their vertical five inches is another issue, but I'm just discussing the coaching component for the time being).

If you can coach some of the most uncoordinated, deconditioned people in the world through the fundamental human patterns, then chances are high you can write a program that doesn't suck.

Which leads (kind of) to the next point....

3. Practice Writing Programs. Apply these programs to real people, then write more programs. Repeat x Infinity.

I'll return with this part on Monday. Hope everyone has a great weekend.