Thoughts from Providence Perform Better

Here are my initial thoughts from the Perform Better summit in Providence this weekend: 

-Perform Better manages to get better every year. Some organizations could learn a lot from them when it comes to putting on seminars. It's easy to see how great of a company they are when you see almost the same exact staff helping out with each seminar over the last 6 years. Turnover is next to nothing and that says a lot.

-The pre-conference (Thursday’s session) was worth the investment on its own. Great Strength Coach social after the lectures as well! Thanks to Anthony Renna for making that happen! 

-It’s amazing how hard it is to choose who to see each hour. I changed my mind 2 or 3 times at the last minute. It’s impossible to go wrong though with the quality of speakers on this tour.  

-Alwyn Cosgrove is still the most entertaining speaker on the Perform Better tour while at the same time being motivational, educational and flat out funny. 

-Overall, the rules of training haven’t changed much but some tools and application continue to evolve. The principles that Lee Taft instilled in me out of grad school still hold incredibly true to this day and maybe even more so with the movement towards more primal, natural movement (“don’t train kids like they are little adults; train adults like they are big kids”) 

-There still seems to be a misunderstanding in some circles of what the Functional Movement Screen is and what it is used for. It is not a performance test. It is not a fitness test. Judging it as one is like saying blood pressure is useless as a predictor of hair color. I’m pretty sure one isn’t related to the other. 

-It’s important to find specific performance goals for people who may not have a body composition goal to reach. “General Fitness” seems to be out if you’re trying to create a culture and motivate people to stick around your gym. There’s a market for training the “general fitness” client towards event-goals like mud runs, Spartan races, 5-10k races, etc. (Cosgrove). 

-I heard Bill Knowles speak for the first time. He had a great approach to getting an awesome training effect in the stages that are typically reserved for “physical therapy”. This is very applicable to my setting right now and falls in line with the “focus on what someone can” do belief system. This is great for increasing the amount of prep time before returning to “performance” to avoid rushing back. 

-Al Vermeil can play for my team any day.  

 

 

-A common theme from the weekend focused on the importance of proper breathing to not only enhance core stability but to allow improvement in mobility as well. Stretching doesn’t work to increase length in muscles (if it’s even needed). Proper strength training through full range of motion is more effective at lengthening a muscle than stretching, since stretching takes over 30 minutes one position to have an effect (adding sarcomeres in series to increase length). The combination of Charlie Weingroff and Art Horne really drove this point home (I hear Brandon Marcello’s hands on was great also). 

Rob Lewis on stage with Charlie

 



-Nick Winkelman is an incredible coach from Athletes Performance. I saw his hands on and heard great buzz from his talk on cueing and almost regret not seeing it. I still disagree with some ways that AP teaches multidirectional speed (shuffling specifically, from this hands on) but it’s impossible to argue with Nick’s effectiveness as a coach and motivator.  

-The reason I say I almost regret missing Nick’s lecture was because I was lucky enough to see Greg Rose’s hands on, focusing on developing rotary power in athletes.  I’ve seen Greg speak 3 or 4 times now and he always gives you simple and applicable take home points. 

This year, he went over his 4 tests used to reveal a power deficit were genius in their simplicity to administer and understand. For rotary athletes it’s expected that a seated medicine ball chest pass (upper body pressing power) and a supine overhead medicine ball throw (chopping motion) will be close to equal (in feet). The number in feet should mirror the athlete’s vertical jump in inches (lower body power).  The final test was a standing rotary “shot put” that allows for an explosive step as part of the throw. In a well-balanced athlete this number, in feet, should be 1 ½ times the distance of the first three. One of these numbers off? Now you know what area to address with training. Pretty cool! 

-Art Horne gave some great cues (verbal and tactile) for coaching breathing. “Fill up the Canister” is one I will be using immediately. His explanation of filling up the balloon in the front of the core with a breath to counter the pressure created from the back and sides (erectors and obliques) was a gem as well. We need 360 degrees of pressure when breathing – creating pressure outward is not enough 

-It’s funny to see young coaches (myself included-we’re going with the relative definition of “young” in this case) when they meet their biggest professional influences. And what might be funnier is meeting an attendee who is not in the profession and has no idea who these people are. Yes, there was one of these here. He decided it’d be a fun guy’s weekend to go a seminar with his trainer and attend a few workouts in Providence. Classic.

 

There is so much more that is left out of this wordy write-up but I wanted to get a few thoughts on paper before I forgot them! The networking that goes on at these things is unbelievable as well. Being able to meet and talk shop or at least interact with other coaches and presenters is what makes these things great. Can’t wait for the next one!