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Are you ready for SLOBATA???

                                                         SLOBATA Experience

At the end of every session at FLO Fitness we have a finisher. Normally we have a high intensity metabolic circuit that we call a FLOBATA.  It's normally 2 to 4 high intensity exercises that we do at a 20/10 work to rest ratio. It is by no means a true TABATA type of training, and that is why we switched the name up for our own personal fun.  However I recently read a book called "The Little Book of Talent" that my schools soccer coach gave to me.  The book gives quick tips on how many successful coaches have created talent in their athletes.  Two key points jumped out to me and we now use them at FLO to end our sessions and we call these finishers our SLOBATA. 
The first point that jumped out to me was having athletes perform a move with their eyes closed. There has been research done on the benefits of this style of teaching a person new movement but hardly anyone knows how to implement it into their programs. It can also be a really huge issue if you have a ton of athletes running around your facility with their eyes closed.  When doing it however, you really feel every muscle firing and trying to do its job. While doing it today I noticed that my right shoulder tries to shrug while doing a TRX row. It was quite the eye opening experience (no pun intended). 
The second point is one that I have also heard Josh Henkin go over with his DVRT program.  The book spoke about athletes learning and doing moves in a super slow motion style. We all know that time under tension and eccentric loading are important parts of training programs, but I ask how many trainers actually do it? The book spoke about tennis pros practicing their serve super slow in order to find the specific spot in the serve that they deviate.  This was such a powerful point because when exercising many clients have one specific spot in their motion that they may not activate a stabilizer muscle or where they recruit a muscle that should not be doing a specific job.  This small deviations tend to be the reason for injuries or chronic pain in sports and training. 
What we did at FLO was to combine the two points together in our SLOBATA. We take 3 "basic" movements and we make our athletes do them super slow (5 second eccentric and concentric count) while having their eyes closed.  This may sound ridiculous but try it out and see what happens with your athletes. They themselves will notice spots where they are not activating the right muscles. You will also see them self correct the movement, which to me is the most powerful part about it.  To me athletes are the greatest compensators and you never really find their flaws until you slow them down and study their movements. This is a great way to get that done, while they are still getting the benefits of a great workout. Our SLOBATA combined with the fact that none of our athletes wear shoes during training at FLO makes for a serious wake up call to the CNS. Its not just about doing something different to separate yourself from other training facilities; to us its about providing the most effective and innovative training for our clients. And the results speak for themselves. 


 Below is this months SLOBATA, try it out and let us know how it goes with your athletes/clients. 
SLOBATA:  2 sets of 8 reps
Reverse Lunges 
TRX Rows 
Push Ups

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