Smart Mind...Strong Body

The Angry Coach's

Smart Mind…Strong Body Paradigm

It was 1982 and as a 15 year old with ambitions to excel in the sports arena I first found the tribal culture of the weight room…some good, some not so good.

We didn’t have a legitimate weight room at the high school I attended, but most of us played sport, mainly football and athletics.

When I decided to join what in those days was known as a gym, I was hooked and soon became part of the weight room scene, observing all the fussiness and culture associated with just lifting weights, mainly barbells and dumbbells with the odd machine, such as lat pulls and leg presses. Having a keen eye for imitation, I noticed the rigid routines, the gadgets, the notebooks and the 500 mirror checks per workout. I was introduced to a new language, gym etiquette and the numbers game…dude, how much ya bench?

I wondered how much was science and how much was gym culture. The guys I hung with seemed to be easily as strong with half the work.

As time passed and I began to question popular gym culture, sets, reps, exercise selection and so on, I came to realize that from a performance perspective it is possible to engineer strength, but maybe not toughness, tenacity, adaptability and functionality. Those things need to grow naturally from correct doses of stress. The message beckons…when we try to micro-manage and control our workouts; when we try to microscopically isolate focus; we actually give up some degree of function and adaptability. A workout should be an obstacle that becomes manageable through hard work, movement learning, proper technique and physical adaptation… then we move onto other obstacles.

I often see people doing awkward or unnatural movements and exercise variations just to make things harder. Some are proud of how hard they can make a goofy exercise. They demonstrate a dumbbell front raise with the thumb pointed down as they awkwardly shrug the shoulder and contort the neck and face. Why would you lift that? Or how about a weighted squat on an unstable surface, such as a Swiss ball or Bosu ball; what’s that all about? The weight lifted is laughably light, whereby the balance issues literally outweigh the resistance being lifted. I guess the front raise thing is supposed to isolate the rotator cuff, but learning to push, pull and press correctly with a reasonable weight, such as a barbell, dumbbell or kettlebell creates an integrated and stable shoulder and thus the need to isolate the ‘cuff using supplemental exercises never presents itself. The guys I grew up lifting with did not know what a rotator cuff was and rarely did we encounter ‘cuff injuries from lifting…maybe football or fighting, but I never remember incurring lifting injuries involving rotator cuff issues and we never lifted with an intentional mechanical disadvantage. Instinctively these guys knew how to manage weight, use the best leverages and work efficiently…injury free!

The point being is this: performance based training should be designed not to make things unnecessarily hard; but to make really hard stuff look and become easier, safer and more manageable. Once achieved move to something harder, or better still heavier!

Somehow performing a one-legged squat on an unstable surface does not seem that smart or necessary. Balancing on an unstable surface is a great way to train balance reactions and squatting with weight is a great way to get strong, but combining the activities only reduces the benefit of each in an artificial attempt to be functional. You can’t fool nature; nature knows it’s a stupid exercise. Instead of trying to make fluffy exercises harder with awkward angles and bad lines, we should pick some hard exercises that are time-honored and technically sound, and learn the art of making them easy…dumbbell and barbell presses, free-weight rows and pulls and of course all manner of barbell squats.

When I first learned barbell lifting, the guys mentoring me did not obsess on making the work harder…it was naturally hard. Instead they taught me how to make a large amount of weight seem manageable. They spoke of fatigue management and preached alignment, pressurization and proper technique. They demonstrated how to tap into more efficient body tension and competent movement patterns. No one ever spoke of calorie burning, muscle hypertrophy or a cool way to make something harder in order to bust a gut. The work was naturally hard and in this old school barbell environment the fat-to-muscle ratio took care of itself without being the subject of conversation.

Rarely were mirrors used. We squatted in a rack dyna-bolted to a white concrete wall…ever considered whether your reflection contributed to your strength improvements and how many sporting endeavors are pursued with a self analyzed reflection?

Maybe real functional training is the ability to adapt and tolerate various forms of work and naturally become more efficient. The work you do should create body knowledge, movement awareness and over time maybe it even produces some toughness. The obvious goal of exercise is to learn the movement in front of you, but the deep goal is to learn to use your own body with its abilities and limits. Most elite sports people work with their coaches and mentors designing workouts to produce and reinforce smart minds and tougher, more functional bodies. The strength seems to take care of itself.