I love to read.  Back when I was in high school I wouldn’t have wanted to say that, nor would I have actually had to worry about saying that (I hated reading with a passion).  Somewhere around the end of college when I started to get bored with Tiger Woods golf on PS2, and one of my roommates somehow found a glitch in ESPN basketball (for PS2) I started reading.*  It started out with performance training books and books about basketball simply to become a better high school coach.  Now, being older, wiser, and quite possibly better looking, I have come to realization that reading is good for the mind, body, and soul.  Over the past week or so I’ve been reading “Goals” by Brian Tracy.  If you aren’t familiar with it, or haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend it as it’s become one of my favorite books of all time. 

In the middle of the book Brian talks about the 3 keys to peak performance: commitment, completion, and closure.  Commitment: make a clear commitment to making something happen and then don’t budge.  Completion: there is a big difference between 95% done and 100% done.  Push through until it is complete.  Closure: close the loop on the task at hand so there are no incomplete issues or tasks.  This will save a lot of emotional and physical stress.

If you haven’t checked out the book, go to your local bookstore or simply amazon.com and check it out.  It’s a book that’s more than worth the price on the back cover.  You will get an immense amount of information about life in general no matter if you’re an athlete, a parent, coach, or trainer.

*As a little side note: the glitch in the game was Eric Piatkowksi (Ever heard of him?  I didn’t think so.) , whom for some reason in ESPN basketball had the ability to drop 60 points on me, despite never seeing more than 3 minutes of action in a real NBA game…was it my roommates skill, or simply a glitch in the game?  Glitch.

I am perfectionist.  I try to tell people it’s my biggest asset and my greatest detriment at the same time.  I will keep this one short, I saw a great quote from my “Don’t Sweat The Small Things” daily calendar:

“Perfectionism is inconsistent with happiness.  The need for perfection and the desire for inner peace are in conflict with each other.”

On the contrary I am now operating on a “take action” type of mind set in trying to get things done and be ok that they aren’t “perfect.” 

Enjoy your weekend.

For Leon Lett of the Dallas Cowboys Superbowl XXVII will always be remembered as the time he fumbled the football when he celebrated too soon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE1G-Dn7nUs.  For the Duke Blue Devils men’s basketball team,January, 2001 will forever be known as one of the great comebacks in NCAA and possibly even in sports history.  They were able to erase a 10-point deficit in the final minute of regulation as they went on to eventually win in overtime: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9_pPqWfI84. 

I just got back from a meeting with a friend and business partner.  It’s always great to know that when you meet with some people you will always take something away from it.   I left this time with a real understanding of one thing: finishing.  In both of the above examples, things weren’t finished.  As an athlete, as a coach, as a team, or as a person, it’s vitally important to finish what you started.  Books, speakers, coaches, everyone will talk about how taking action is one of the most important things you can do to succeed.  I think finishing the action is probably most important.  A lot of people get a lot of things almost done–myself included. 

In the Duke vs Maryland game above, Maryland played 97.5% of the game amazing.  They had done all, but won the game, when the last minute completely fell apart.  That last 2.5% ended up costing them the game, and who knows how it affected them mentally the rest of the season, or perhaps even later on in life.  Leon Lett had run the ball back nearly 65yds when the last yard cost him a touchdown (and embarrassment which would last for years…). 

Finish what you start.  Don’t cut things short and skip the last exercises on a workout; don’t take a play off because you think you can; and always make sure you complete something before moving on.  Remember, actions are addictive.  If you get in the habit of putting things off or not finishing them, it’s really easy to continue to do the same.  Before you know it, you’ll be drowning in your own sea of incomplete work and won’t know where to go for help.

“One does not accumulate but eliminate.  It is not daily increase but daily decrease.  The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.” -Bruce Lee

Simplifying things makes it much easier.  It doesn’t matter what “things” you are talking about, it works for all.  I advise that most athletes should simplify their training.  It doesn’t matter what sport you play, or how old you are, what gender, size or any other variable you can think of, just simplify.  “But Shelby, what if…”  Just simplify. 

Years ago when I “unofficially” working with college athletes (as I was in college myself), I spent way too much time telling athletes too many things.  “You need to do this, but make sure you don’t do this, and also make sure you don’t have too many of this either…”  Now that I’m older (unfortunately) and much wiser (hard to believe I know!), I have realized that everything should be simplified.  Before my fellow exercise and performance officinatoes tell me that things are not “simple,” I do understand that, however, I feel like it is my job to not make things “simple,” but rather to “simplify.”  There is a big difference.

So here are three simple tools to help simplify your workouts and training:

1) Emphasize only one phsyical quality at a time.  That means that you only train to enhance one element per phase (ideally 3-4 weeks).  We start every phase 1 with the goal of improving an athletes movement.  That means that everything we do is about quality and balance and less about speed, weight, or simply getting “jacked.”  If you are unsure of what movement quality is, think less weight, more unilateral (one leg or one arm movement), slower tempo (speed at which the lift is executed), and higher reps.  We try to “balance” the body.

2) Try to get get at only a few skills (at most) at one time.  This actually works better if you are trying to improve in only one skill at a time.  If you want to throw the discuss fruther, guess what, that’s a skill.  Don’t try to throw the discuss further, the javelin further, and hammer further.  Once you pick one goal, and figure out how you’re going to get there, you’ll find that the other skills magically start to follow along.

3) Cut out crap.  Crap is the politically correct term, for doing things that don’t produce the results you want.  In essence: simplify.  If doing a bunch of nonsense isn’t seeming to produce the results you want, simply move on.  At worst it will allow you to replace it with another movement that may help more, and at best it will allow you to see that it may not be needed at all.

Piecing it all together.  Unfortunately the three tips I mentioned above don’t magically work without some actual effort (sucks I know).  But if you do it, you’ll be amazed at how much nonsense you had in your life/training to begin with.  For those of you who are having a little bit of trouble getting ideas of where you can start, here is an example:

Freshmen male basketball player (high school):  Needs to gain weight and get stronger on the court.

1) His one physical quality: strength.  I don’t even worry about weight with kids who are 15 years old.  That comes with time and honestly it seems to come in spurts.  While I want him to gain weight, I will worry about the strength aspect first.  Bottom line, he spends most of his time doing heavy sets between 3-6 reps on nearly all of his exercises.  Doesn’t matter if it’s lower body, upper body, or total body.  I try to get him to move as much as weight as possible.

2) Skill: You guessed it, strength!  Don’t think strength is a skill?  How many people out there can deadlift 500+lbs?  It takes more skill than most think.  Ironically, if most athletes were simply stronger, they would find that their skill level would increase exponentially.

3) Cut the Crap: He has a no frills workout spending about 80% of it moving challenging weights.  Whether it be bodyweight variations, or loaded movements, he doesn’t spend his days on a bosu ball juggling oranges.  That won’t help him defend the low block in basketball.

Congratulations to Sherri Emery who earned a Silver Medal in the Empire State Games for skeleton bobsledding.  Sherri has been working very hard off of the track to improve her starting speed and strength in hopes of making the next Olympic Winter Games in 2014.

http://www.empirestategames.org/winter/results/skeleton.htm

Sherri is just one of many athletes who put in a great deal of time off of the competitive field to improve themselves physically.