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.
Joint-Friendly Conditioning, Part 1
Aerobic training, energy systems work, metabolic training, get-sexy-for-beach time. However you want to put it, it's loved by many, and even if for those who don't love it, it needs to get done.
Unfortunately, the large, waving red flag I continually see soaring above the majority of people's conditioning* routines, is that they quickly leave their victims injured and broken, rather than better equipped for the arena of athletics or simply leaner and healthier.
*Note: I realize this term means completely different things to different people, and entire books could be written (and have been) on the matter. However, for the rest of the post, for all intents and purposes "conditioning" will be used to simply imply anything elevates your heart rate up for the purpose of enhanced work capacity, performance, fat-loss, or health.
Traditional running programs boast one of the highest injury rates among participants to date, and the incalculable group exercise classes and exercise DVD sets out there have people performing lunge jumps, broad jumps, repeated box jumps, and other so-called "plyometrics" until they're blue in the face. Or, until their patella tendon shoots out front side of their leg, whatever comes first I suppose.
As as aside, please keep in mind that when I use the term "injury" I'm not so silly to presume that all of you out there undergoing a common conditioning regimen are going to become paralyzed or some equivalent of being blasted by the Death Star's ray gun, but it could be something as simple as tendinitis, tendinosis, back pain, or any developing some sort of "achy" joint in general.
So, given that you're likely either A) an athlete, or B) someone who cares about feeling, looking, and moving better, this begs three questions, along with the part of this article that you actually care about:
#1. How do you perform conditioning routines that reduce the risk of injury occurring during the process?
#2. If you're currently currently suffering any form of injury, how can you still become a mean, lean, fighting machine despite your achy knees, back, and/or shoulders?
#3. If you're a competitive athlete, how do you obtain enhanced work capacity, yet spare your joints and central nervous system in the process?
In general, you're going to want to avoid exercises that place high stress on the joints, and movements that, when performed under a state of fatigue, aren't likely to degrade in form. So running, jogging, flat-ground sprinting, and repeated jumping and bounding (incorrectly dubbed 'plyometrics' by the fitness gurus) are going to be considered "higher risk."
Oh, and I can't believe this should even need be addressed, but the olympic lifts for high reps are out, too.
So, what to do? Below are a few of my choice, joint-friendly conditioning options (feel free to chime in any of your personal favorites below), which I've divided into two "spectrums:" Beginner ---> Intermediate and Intermediate ---> Advanced. There's obviously overlap between the two categories, and everything isn't black and white, but hopefully this will help you get a decent idea of some of your options to toy with.
Beginner ---> Intermediate
1) Loaded Carries (Farmer Walks)
A bread-and-butter movement. Quoting the man Dan John himself: "The loaded carry does more to expand athletic qualities than any other single thing I've attempted in my career as a coach and athlete. And I do not say that lightly."
Virtually anyone can do them, the majority of the variations are extremely joint-friendly, and not to mention they get the heart rate up at an alarming rate. The other week I took my farmer walk implements to the local high school track and walked 800 meters with them. The next day I no longer wondered what loaded carries were good for.
Below is a real quick video on a bunch of different variations you can use if you don’t have access to implements. Note that you can certainly use a dumbbell instead of a kettlebell for a large majority of these.
Bill Hartman also wrote an excellent recent post on how loaded carries make for quite a remedial exercise selection. Check it out HERE.
2) Sled Pushing, Pulling, Dragging
This has to be one of my favorites, by far. Easy on the low back, shoulders, and knees. It’s relatively “dummy proof,” it teaches one to simultaneously flex one hip and extend the other, and produces very little post-workout soreness (extremely important for athletes in particular). Just last year, when I was dealing with a nagging leg injury that made squatting problematic, I was still able to push it hard on the sled while concurrently healing my injury.
3) Jumping Jacks. Who said it had to be complicated?
4) Medicine Ball Work. Note that I'd recommend sticking to overhead slamming until one knows how to use their hips (not low back) to do wall throws.
5) Airdyne Bike.
6) Low-level + Low Repetition Bodyweight Drills in Sequence
7) Dynamic Mobility Work
Intermediate ---> Advanced
1) Any of the list above (sled work, farmer carries, jumping jacks etc.). It's all scalable, after all.
2) Crawls!
People usually make fun of these until they try them. They're deceptively challenging when performed for reasonable distances, and the beauty of them is they can literally be done anywhere.
See the video below for numerous demonstrations. I’d recommend starting with just the bear and tiger crawls, and make sure you’re keeping a stable spine throughout. The chicken, kangaroo, gorilla, spider, and scorpion wouldn’t be advised to those with injuries.
3) KB Swings
4) Burpees. Maybe. Just be sure you're achieving full hip extension at the top and not looking like a pile of doo-doo as you land from the jump and transition into the pushup.
5) Sledge Swings
6) Hill Sprints
7) Jump Rope
8 ) Barbell (and Kettlebell) Complexes
9) Low-level Push/Pull/Hinge/Squat Patterns
I'll be back on Friday to briefly discuss a few options on how to string these together.
(Update: You can see Part 2 HERE)
Squat Grip Revisited
I still feel people aren’t grasping the importance of a proper squat set up in regards to the upper body. The whole movement starts from the upper body so to have that first line of defense be lackluster will undoubtedly make the entire lift suffer. The goal of the upper body during the squat is to be as tight as possible; engaging every muscle from the scapular retractors all the way to the spinal erectors and everything in between. I will inform you now that using a grip with a “bent” or “lazy” wrist position will prevent your squat from being all that it could be. Failing to straighten the wrist during a squat will cause a failure to engage all necessary musculature equaling out to “force leaks” both in the eccentric and concentric portions of the lift. I have posted the video below before but I figured I would post it again to show people how to use a different type of squat grip in order to overcome mobility problems to achieve a straight writs position. Check it out again!
Mental Mondays
Over the last year I've had my eyes opened to a new aspect of athletic performance preparation: the Mental Coach. I think all of us recognize that the "mental game" is pretty darn important to athletic success. After all, when it comes down to it, it's either your mind or body (or a combo of the two) that sinks or swims your efforts on the court, the field, on the mat, in the pool, on the track, out of the golf course, etc.
But, what I didn't realize is that there are professional Mental Coaches who specialize in finely tuning all things "mental" for athletes.
Recently, I've had the pleasure of getting to know Brian Levenson. His long list of overwhelming successes with the athletes he has assisted can not be denied! He's a rockstar on the rise!
Beginning next Monday*, Brian will become a regular fixture on this blog providing "Mental Monday" posts. Much like the information all of us at SAPT strive to provide, Brian will be providing totally FREE, extremely high-quality content that will include a variety of tips and strategies for picking up your mental game.
Please welcome Brian next week by offering up some comments on his first post!
*What about Stevo's Monday posts? Well, the poor man needs a break. He's been throwing up amazing posts 3x per week for almost 2-years straight. Now, he'll be down to two, but I totally expect the quality will somehow continue to rise. Hard to imagine, I know, but most of you don't see how this man works!
Box Squatting is the Greatest
In efforts to conquer my fear of speaking in front of a camera I decided to make today's entry a video post. We all need to work on our weaknesses and mine happens to be public speaking and speaking on camera; it’s like kryptonite to being able to organize my thoughts. Anyway, practice makes perfect so the following video is talking about why I prefer to use the box squat (as opposed to a squat to box) as my preferred method when teaching proper back squat mechanics. I hope the audio is loud enough; just in case the two main reasons I go into as to why I prefer box squatting is safety and posterior chain strength development. Enjoy…
Sports Are Healthy Right? by Tadashi Updegrove
Continuing from my last post about the do’s and don’ts of an intern, SAPT received someone who exemplified pretty much exactly what I felt a good intern should be. For the past semester Tadashi has made an impact on SAPT through his knowledge, coaching, and ability to learn and apply. In his brief time here he became a colleague and a good friend. Unfortunately, his time at SAPT has come to an end and he has decided to take his talents to South Beach and by South Beach I mean College Park, Maryland to pursue an internship with the S & C department. With that said, here is Tadashi’s final task for completing his time at SAPT.... As a Kinesiology major, I was required to enroll in a “Senior Seminar” class this past semester, where we basically got in a big group and discussed health. Most discussions were centered around the importance of health, how we can inspire others to be healthy, and the future of health in the United States and the world. As many of my fellow classmates declared their own personal mission statements to become soldiers in the war against obesity, or how to combat the big tobacco companies, I sat quietly in the corner, hoping I didn’t get called on. Then I got called on:
“Tadashi, why are you so interested in health?”
After stumbling over my words I finally managed to utter something like “err… I, um... I’m not.” I went on to explain that health was not my primary interest. What I was interested in was sports and sports performance. I wanted to understand how the human body adapts so I could understand how to manipulate the applied stimuli to make someone stronger, jump higher, hit harder, and pick up heavier things.
Then I was approached with a follow up question:
“Well, sports are healthy right?”
I don’t know how I feel about that one. Sure being physically active and exercising is healthy, but after looking through countless research articles it’s hard to ignore the high percentages of participant injury in sports. Competitive lifting, both powerlifting and weightlifting, ranks at the low end of participant injury with something between 40%-50% (Yup, ½ of participants getting injured apparently is low compared to other sports). The NFL is under scrutiny right now because of the concussion rates and the violent nature of the game. I know the NFL is easy to hate on when discussing health and safety because… well it’s football, and the game involves Hulk-Smashing people against their will.
But football players aren’t the only ones getting hurt. Even the concussion rates in girls’ lacrosse are high enough to raise concerns about helmet requirements. Take a look at ACL injuries and you’ll find that the overwhelming majority of ACL tears occur because of non-contact situations. ACLs tend to rupture during a sprint, a jump landing, decelerating, or change-of-direction task. Athletes in sports that demand a high volume of these tasks are placed at a higher risk of injury. Think soccer, volleyball, basketball, etc.
During my experience working with the SAPT coaches and athletes, I began to realize more and more that training for performance is training for health. Learning to squat with the knees out and the hips back makes you more of a beast because you get more recruitment of the glutes and your legs are placed in a structurally ideal position to produce force into the ground. This also happens to be the healthiest position for your knee joint by reducing the load to the medial compartment. Bracing the midsection during a lift will increase performance because of an improved transfer of force between the upper and lower body. This ability to create a rigid torso also happens to be the best way to keep your spine from folding in half under load. Similar performance and health benefits can be said about keeping the scapulae retracted during rows or tucking the elbows during a pushup.
I played lacrosse and ran track in high school, and now compete in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu/submission grappling, and like many athletes in other sports, have come to understand that injuries are just part of the game. Most athletes can expect to get banged up here and there. Sometimes, unfortunately, they’ll get hit with a more serious injury that takes them out for a length of time that really puts their patience (and sanity) to the test. For me it was a back injury that occurred during a grappling session which required surgery last September. Looking back it’s easy to say I should have done more soft tissue work, anterior core exercises, mobility drills, and gotten more rest but… hindsight’s always 20/20. What is it going to take for me to get healthy? Strengthening the right muscles, mobilizing the right joints, and training the neuromuscular system appropriately. Sounds eerily like training for performance...
I realize now that I am interested in health (specifically musculoskeletal health), because it goes hand in hand in optimizing athletic performance, but I still have to disagree with a blanket statement like “sports are healthy.”
Even a sport like distance running boasts a participant injury rate upwards of 70%! The next time you watch a baseball or softball game watch the pitcher’s shoulder as he/she pitches. Try and convince me that they throw this way to improve their health.
However, despite the risk of injury there are many reasons why I believe sports are awesome, and most of these reasons are not necessarily health related. Growing up my Dad always told me that I would learn more from playing sports than I would learn in the classroom, and I’m pretty sure he was right (but I went to class too…). I learned what it meant to work hard towards a goal, work with others, and make sacrifices for the benefit of the team. Not to mention it’s FUN, and I’ve had some of my most memorable moments on a lacrosse field or a grappling mat.
