Identify Identity

The establishment of roles is an important element of a team’s success.

While roles often call for individual sacrifice, it’s important to also indentify the identity of the athlete.  As an athlete, you should spell out the concrete elements of your personality that will remain unchanged regardless of the role needed from the team.

Consider the identification card below as your “athlete license."   Bring the license with you everywhere you go.  Your identity should remain unchanged regardless of environment, circumstance, or people.  It’s important to renew your license when it becomes expired (every three years), to make sure that all of the information is accurate.   Cut it out, keep it in your locker, wallet, or gym bag.  Always make sure to identify your identity and hang your hat on what makes you, you.

Identification CardIt doesn't have to be quite so pretty and pink, but consider filling a card out with the following questions answered:

Where are you from?  Why does this matter?

Who helps hold you accountable for your actions?

How does sport impact who you are? 

What traits define you as an athlete?

Working Out on Vacation

Whew! It's good to be back!

For those of you who are out there scratching their heads at the above remark, I spent the past three weeks adventuring around Europe; it was quite the incredible experience, to put it mildly, and I'm going to do a recap of the trip (along with some videos) early next week. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, I'm going to briefly tackle the subject of working out on vacation. I've had a number of people ask me this week, "So, what did you do for lifting whilst in Europe?"

Here's the #1 piece of advice I usually give people when they ask me what they should do while on vacation: Don't obsess over it. 

It is vacation after all, right? And given that most hotels, cruise ships, and resorts are outfitted with worse equipment than your average garage gym, you simply can't expect to to increase your strength levels while out of town.

BUT, as vacation typically does lend us to partaking in less-than-desirable eating, sleeping, and exercise habits, it's certainly not a bad idea to move around more than a beached whale while traveling.

For me personally, while backpacking around Europe, these were the guidelines I adhered to:

1. Again, don't obsess over it. If I'm too busy remaining perpetually worried about when I can get in a workout, I'll miss out on everything happening around me. 2. When I did get a chance to train, here are the rules I kept: Keep it short, and don't try to be a hero. I'll have plenty of time to train when I get back home, but I'm only in Europe so many times in my life (maybe once?). 3. Fortunately, I spent the majority of my trip hiking (Switzerland has some brutally awesome trails), canyoning (more on this next week), and walking around in general. There were VERY few days, with the exception of flight and train travel time, where I sat down longer than I was out walking around and remaining active. So, I ended up only doing one dedicated workout throughout the entire trip. Big deal. (Refer to rule #1.)

For those curious, here is what I did, and is a simple plan you can use while traveling virtually anywhere.

Warm-Up: Pushup to Yoga Stretch Complex, 1x5 each

Next, repeat the following circuit for 10-20 minutes:

A1. Goblet Squat to Overhead Stepback Lunge x5 (I held the backback that's in the picture at the top of this post)

A2. Spiderman Pushup x6/leg or Tempo Pushup x10

A3. Single-Leg Hip Thrust x8/leg hold :2 @top (used a bed to elevate my back)

A4. Side Plank to Plank to Side Plank x :20each

Nothing fancy, but it took very little time, while at the same time allowed me to get the juices flowin' and briefly tackle everything ranging from mobility, core stability, posterior chain work, to shoulder stability, and provided a minor strength stimulus for the upper and lower body.

The options are virtually limitless on what you could with your bodyweight, let alone if you brought along a pair of furniture sliders or a few resistance bands.

Common Exercise Corrections: Lower Back Pain in Deadlifting and Squatting

I hope everyone fared hurricane Sandy safely! We"re so thankful that worst of it bypassed the DC area!! Thoughts and prayers go out to those in NY and NJ which seemed to have brunt of Sandy"s fury poured out upon them!

Secondly, a GINORMOUS congratulations to the following SAPT ladies who made the all-district volleyball teams:

1st team- Caitlyn, Eliza and Hannah

2nd team - Kenzie

Honorable mention- Clare, Maggie and Carina

Congratulations ladies!! All your hard work in here paid off!

Anyway, onward and upward. As stated in my previous corrections post, it"s usually not the exercise that"s causing pain, it"s the execution.

Today"s topic: Lower back pain/irritation during a squat or deadlift.

From the outside eye, everything looks great: Lower back is tight and has a slight arch, the upper back is stiff, the hips are moving back like they should... but there"s a niggling pain in the lower back. What gives?

This is a perfect example. Kerry looks pretty good for the most part, but she had a little bit of a pain in her lower back as she pulled. (thankfully she told me. Lesson to trainees: coaches, though we are Jedis, we can"t always tell if you"re having a pain. Speak up!) As was the case with Kerry, more often that not, the athlete isn"t bracing the abs or is not using the glutes as much as (s)he needed.

Solution:

- "Brace your abs like Now we’re back to college student credit cards based systems, pretty much the world over. you"re about to get punched" is a standard cue I tell athletes. We incorporate bracing drills, to learn proper bracing technique, but this cue will work in a pinch if the athlete hasn"t mastered bracing yet.

- "Start squeezing your glutes/cracking the walnut BEFORE you pull off the ground." (alternately, in a squat, I tell the athlete to "spread the floor with their feet" on the way down and the way up) This cue usually makes the athlete more aware of their glutes and helps them think about using them more. By activating the glutes BEFORE the pull, it acts like a primer button for a lawn mower, it gets the engine ready to work! When they glutes are doing their job well then there"s much less strain on the lower back musculature.

Again, there isn"t much visually that changed between the first and the second video, but Kerry didn"t have pain and the pull looked much more solid and confident.

So, if you have a nagging pain, brace and crack the walnut! 9 times out of 10 that will clear it all up!

It's History, Not Right or Wrong

Yesterday I came across a paragraph in a Charlie Francis manual that said something to the effect of: As coaches and athletes, we shouldn't allow ourselves to get so wrapped up into what's right or wrong. Everything is simply history (and, often, history-in-the-making) that can help to inform further progress and even more effective training means and methods. What a wonderful thought! After all, there are an infinite number of ways to arrive at the same conclusion or result.

Who's to say the below video isn't the BEST way to train a libero? (fast forward to :35 mark and go from there):

Who's to say wearing board-shorts and no shirt isn't the most effective training gear? Watch out on this one... there's some rough language:

OH... MY... GOD... Apparently this guy has been doing this for years without injury...Who's to say this is wrong? Me, I'll say it on this one:

The opinions and methods of other coaches, facilities, and training plans definitely deserve respect. It's all just history-in-the-making!

How to Build a Monster Grip

Athletes involved in grappling sports are a special breed. I'm talking about the wrestlers, judo players, jiu jitsu players, MMA fighters, etc. To compete at a high level these athletes need a special blend of strength, endurance, mobility, balance, and a just touch of insanity. Additionally, an impressive trait that almost all good grapplers tend to have is ridiculous grip strength. I competed in the Copa Nova Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Fall Championships over the weekend, and after my matches my forearms were on FIRE! A big part of the game is getting a good grip on your opponent while keeping their grips off of you, so it's important to have some hands that you can rely on.

However the benefits of a stronger grip isn't limited to the grapplers. Working on grip strength can improve shoulder health, increase performance in other sports, and make activities of daily living easier. And we all know big forearms are cool.

So how do you build the vice-like grip of a grappling champion?  The solution is simple, go wrestle somebody everyday.

I'm just kidding (for most of us). But here are some tips to really challenge your grip within your lifting program.

Towels

Using towels for many of your pulling exercises will make you grip harder than normal. If you relax your grip even for a moment it could slip out of your fingers. Towels can be used for pull-ups, chin-ups, cable/band rows, inverted rows, face pulls, and shrugs.

Bottoms Up KBs

I haven't tried any bottoms up kettlebell work until recently, and it was definitely more challenging than I thought. Even with what I thought was moderate weight it was difficult to control. The bottoms up position can be used for pressing variations but also for weighted carries. Try some weighted carries with a KB in a bottoms-up rack or overhead position. If you've never tried it before your forearms might be in for a surprise.

Heavy Farmer's Walks

Load up the implements and talk a stroll. With these don't worry about using a towel or finding another way to make it specifically harder for your grip. The weight alone should do the trick. Chalk up your hands if you need to, but don't use straps (duh).

Deadlifts

Picking up heavy things is one of the best ways to build up your grip. When using a barbell, try to go double overhand as long as you can when working up in weight.

Use these tips to feel better, open the tightest of pickle jars, and build a crushing handshake you can be proud of!

Mirror Test

Last week Alex Rodriguez became mitigated to a cheerleader when his team needed him most.  A-Rod, as he’s known, is one of the best hitters of the past 20 years, yet his success occurred during the heart of the steroid era.  He has dated Kate Hudson and Cameron Diaz, owns a Mercedes dealership, is a 12-time all-star, has made over 325 million dollars, and has won a MLB championship.  Yet, I wonder what A-Rod sees when he looks in the mirror?  Does he think, what if?  Is he happy? He came into the Majors as a phenom, as the first pick of the draft, and was very successful early in his career.  What if he stayed away from steroids?  How much money and fame would he sacrifice to know that he played the game cleanly?  How much does he strive for acceptance and desire to be well liked by his peers, the fans, and the media?  We will probably never know the answers to these questions, but these are relevant questions for us everyday.

Similarly Lance Armstrong has not only dominated his sport, but has made an even bigger impact with his fight against cancer.  Armstrong’s continued denial of taking performance enhancement drugs has caused many to question his integrity.  At what point would Lance have sacrificed some of his success to avoid having to continuously lie to others and himself?

When is it appropriate to sacrifice integrity for greatness?  How fulfilling is winning when you know you cheated to get there?  Is your satisfaction solely due to the end result, or because of the journey along the way?  41% of National Lottery Winners in the UK continued to work despite their newfound financial windfall.   Many lottery winners have committed suicide or figured out other ways to rid themselves of their wealth.  What do you see when you look into the mirror?

Knowing who you are, your identity, and what you believe in is often what defines our self-satisfaction, which greatly impacts our happiness.  And happiness counts.