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Don't get lost in the numbers (Warning for Performance Coaches)



In business, looking at your numbers is a great way to measure success.  Actually, in anything you do tracking your numbers is a way to measure progress. I understand this concept completely. However, I have found that in fitness and performance coaching, people are getting lost in the numbers. They are forgetting what their main job is because they are to busy watching the numbers.  I will give you an example of what I mean. 
Example 1: (My biggest pet peeve)  Many "performance coaches" brag about the numbers that they have their athletes lift. There is nothing wrong with this because it is a great measure in how your athlete is increasing in "strength" (I put strength in quotes because it depends on how you define strength).  With that being said, I ask you the following questions.: 
What was Micheal Jordan's max squat?
 How many burpees could Wayne Gretzky do before he puked?
 What is Usain Bolt's 3 rep max on bench?

 I can probably guess that your answer to those questions is, "Who gives a sh*t!!"  Pardon my language but it's the truth! No one cares what your numbers are if you can perform on the field, court, rink, pitch, track, etc..  Once again, I am not saying that those numbers are NOT part of performance, I am saying that they are NOT the only measures you can use. The reason I am passionate on this point is because when "performance coaches" only focus on certain numbers they lose site of the main goal. The main goal is to have your athlete perform their best at their sport, not to flip a car.  
Here is the scenario I see over and over and over again with youth athletes. Athlete tells me how much they lift on the offseason, they are so excited about how strong they are, and can't wait for the season to come because they are proud of their accomplishments and hard work (As they should be because  they did work hard and should be very proud of themselves).  The season starts and 3 weeks into the season the athletes suffers a non contact injury and is out for a few weeks. This is a huge set back and many times the injury may linger on thru the season. They don't perform at optimal level and have an average season at best.
 
 So, Who is to blame? 

 In my experience, "performance coaches" get so lost in the numbers for Sagittal Plane exercises  (bench, squat, deadlift, pull ups, hang clean). They forget sports are 3D. If you can squat 315lbs but can not contra laterally stabilize yourself in a static position, you have issues. If you can bench 300+ but can't hold a side plank for 15 seconds, you have issues.  The body needs to be balanced if it is going to perform in a sport.  It must be able to move efficiently in ALL planes of motion, especially on the youth level. 

As I mentioned earlier, I am not opposed to using numbers to measure progress. I am however opposed to making them your only measure. For my athletes at FLO, I like to use Movement as our measure. Athletes come in with terrible form and no stability; we help them to learn their bodies and be able to control their movement. We also load them and increase their ability to lift more weight but it is often a by-product of their bodies becoming more efficient.  Our focus is, cleaner movement during athletic performance. The results are athletes that can play a WHOLE season without a non contact injury. I am not saying we can prevent every injury but we avoid many of the common ones. This is our main measure of success at FLO.  Our theory is very simple : No one cares how much you can lift if you are sitting on the bench with an injury!

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