Coaches Know - Movement Matters

Categories: Blog Jun 25, 2017

Another Guest Post from all the way out in Scotland, OS Certified Coach, Richard Macaulay.

There is a wealth of information out there for coaches and athletes, but often with more information comes less knowledge.

As a coach I feel it is my job to try to guide our athletes through this mine field of information.

Enter Original Strength.

This is the first system I have come across were there are no trade-offs. You don't choose to prioritize strength over endurance, high intensity over low intensity – you use the principle of ‘good, better, best’ and progress/regress each movement for each athlete at their current level.

Original strength is akin to training déjà vu….the reason you can learn it so quickly is because you have done it before - for a coach and athlete this is ideal - it allows for an assessment from the coach, establishing a starting point and then a whole lot of ‘doing’ by the athlete.

Anyone coaching young people (or anyone for that matter) will know that to keep the participant interested, motivated and engaged means less time standing listening and more time doing. Even those with movement issues - OS is a tonic with the versatility to cater to all needs without sacrificing on results.

When I was first beginning my journey with Original Strength a few years ago, I was working with a group of talented junior athletes. Apart from teaching them a couple of basic barbell lifts with little to no weight – our program was based around the ‘3Cs’ – Core, Crawls and Carries.

Core consisted of a lot of gait pattern work (dead bugs, bird dogs as well as some plank work and explosive hip closing and extension work – mountain climbers and the forgotten squat thrust).

Carries consisted of simply moving weight from ‘here’ to ‘there’. We picked it up we carried it and we put it down again. We used many types of carry – farmers, suitcase, zercher, rack, overhead, bottoms up. We even used their school bags and marched/lunged around.

Crawls were/are self-explanatory. With knees up or down -we moved forwards, backwards, laterally. For distance, time, with sleds, pulling ropes.

What I soon learned was that all of this was Original Strength (OS)….each section was intrinsically linked to the other.

In my ignorance I tried to split it into sections, to over complicate it, but in reality it couldn’t be – it was painfully simple. I couldn’t believe that something as simple as breathing differently/properly, would alter how they moved, how fast, how far and for how long.

The more I thought about it the more I realized I was just allowing the players to move as they were supposed to... to move without any brakes on their body.  We were mimicking real life and catering to the demands of their sport all in one.

The difference their coaches noted to their on-field performances was huge..via GIPHY

EXAMPLE TRAINING PROGRAM

Here is an example of one of their workouts - the workouts were seldom the same twice, so this is just one example with various priorities for that day:

Warm Up/Buy In:

To get the athletes (and their coaches) to buy in to what we were doing, we started with a few resets that gave a big bang for the buck, and still made them feel like they were working and using time effectively.

A couple of minutes spent lying down breathing deeply – we do this a lot with hands overhead on the floor to really help open up the shoulders and upper back.

3 rounds
Cross crawls up/down gym
Kneeling head nods x 10
Elevated rocking x 10

Body position work (mimicking on field body positions, but under load) - Crawl position 20 seconds, crawl rotations clockwise/anti clockwise, bird dogs 3x10

Strength and Conditioning Program:
Burpee - 3 x 10 (shooting for 10 reps in 30 seconds – this was built upon over time)
Farmers walk – 2xup/down astro pitch (long distance day – stop/start at every line for 2 seconds)

‘Quads R us’
3 rounds
Forward lunges x 10
Backward lunges x 10
Jumping lunges x 10
Cross ducks (duck walk touching hand to opposite knee ala cross crawl – hello hip flexors)
Forward crawl up/down gym

Cash out (cool down) by pressing reset:
Lying head nods x 10
Forearm rocking x 10
Breathing x no set time
Developmental flexibility work

This routine was just an example of one session. These sessions continued to evolve as I delved deeper in OS.

We now spend more time cross crawling, lying down breathing – putting them in different positions which shorten and lengthen their bodies to add load to the breathing pattern.

The ‘buy in’ has always been more of what I think they ‘need’ (if we are short on time we only do the buy in) and the rest is a mix of what they ‘need’ and what I think they ‘want’.

The results speak for themselves – the more I learn, the more I can pass on. Seeing the players having such amazing results from simply teaching them about their own bodies and how they are designed to move continually inspires me to learn more.

This is truly an amazing journey and one I strongly encourage every coach, or individuals working with athletes or those looking to increase performance in any avenue to embark on.

Original Strength and Pressing RESET has done and continues to do wonders for me as a coach. If you are looking to delve deeper into the performance aspect and to truly create a lasting effect for you athletes, I recommend you look into the new and exciting OS performance course coming soon to North Carolina on July 23rd.

 

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