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Speaker 1: Let's talk about the four components of athletic performance. I came up with this
concept years and years ago. I've been training athletes for almost 30 years now, and I'll
tell you what, what I found over the years, that there are four essential components to
accelerating your ability as an athlete that I think, as coaches and as parents, we tend
to overlook. I want to talk about the physical aspects.
Now, this does not include nutrition and all, I'll be honest with you. Nutrition is very
important. That's a whole lesson by itself, but we overlook these things because I'll
tell you, these are so crucial to extending your athletic performance to improving your
athletic performance to getting to the next level. Knowing your strengths and knowing
your weaknesses. I have an old saying: maintain your strengths
and strengthen your weaknesses. Let's go over this. Let's talk about strength. The four
components of athletic performance or performance: strength. Strength is multi-planar, multi-planar
mean you have to be strong in different planes of motion. Too many times over the years,
what I have seen are athletes, that they're very strong in a linear motion.
They're very strong when it comes to running straight ahead, but they're not very strong
when it comes to changing direction without blowing a knee out, without getting hurt,
or they just lack power or speed or change in direction ability to go from point A to
point B at a 45-degree angle, or to stop, turn around and go back this way. They lack
that ability ... directional change ability. That's multi-planar.
Now they can run fast straight ahead, but they're not necessarily good at transitioning
at different directions. You have ... that has to be addressed in your program. You have
to be strong in a multi-plane motion. Going straight ahead. Going side to side and even
rotationally, rotationally meaning like swinging a baseball bat, throwing a baseball, stop,
turn around going back this way. Having to rotate.
Those components must be addressed. The second one is balance, and balance is basically equilibrium.
It's the ability to maintain your balance on one leg. If you fall down to get up, change
in direction once again because change in direction ... multiple change in direction
movements requires more balance than going straight ahead.
Now straight ahead does require a degree of balance, don't get me wrong now, but when
you change directions like this all the time and then start to go back this way, that requires
a higher degree of balance because you're loading the body more.
You're putting more what we call a knee-centric load on the body, so those areas must be addressed.
You can do that, by the way. You can strengthen your balance by incorporating certain strengthening
exercises in the strength modality here. The next one is timing.
Timing is basically coordination. Coordinating patterns of movement. It's the ability to
change direction. This ability to jump and change directions. It's the ability of a boxer
to punch a heavy bag or speed bag. It's the ability of Peyton Manning throwing the football
and hitting his receiver just at the right moment. That's called timing.
Those areas must be addressed. Once again, you might have great timing when it comes
to certain planes in motion like going straight ahead, but when it comes to change direction,
you may not have great timing skills. What I'm getting at here is you can turn ... you
can tell by my terminology, where I'm going is that you have to have abilities in multiple
planes of motion. The next one is mobility. Now this is an important
one here. You can be flexible. Some people confuse mobility and flexibility. You can
be flexible without necessarily being mobile. Mobility is really the ability of timing,
balance, strength, and flexibility thrown in there because a person who does, let's
say, a lot of yoga has great, great flexibility. You get them in an athletic field, and that
... I'm not putting yoga down, but you get them doing some sort of athletic event, their
mobility is not very good, because they lack strength to change directions. Because they
lack strength when it comes to landing. Because they might lack strength when it comes to
dynamic, explosive movements. Mobility is a combination of everything above
here, timing, balance, strength with flex ability thrown in there. You don't have to
be able to tie yourself in a knot to be mobile, because I've seen athletes that have come
through my facility over the years. I was a training coach for several years at the
college level and NFL level. I've seen athletes who are not very flexible,
but you get them on the football field or basketball court or the wrestling mat or the
baseball field, and all of a sudden, he looks like a different guy. That person can move.
They have mobility, whereas on the other hand, I have seen people that can tie themselves
in a knot when it comes to flexibility, but their athletic skills is lacking.
What I'm saying is that these four components are important in your athlete's ability. Now
getting back to my statement about maintaining your strengths and strengthening your weaknesses.
If you've got an athlete that can squat 500 pounds but that kid can't even hardly bend
over and touch his toes and his balance is not very good, he needs to emphasize some
mobility drills, and some balance drills in his or her training.
If you've got an athlete that can tie themselves in a knot, they have great flexibility but
their strength is terrible, their balance is decent, their timing is decent, but that
person needs to work on that area. That's the area you need to spend your time in. Don't
spend your time in areas where you're already great at.
Getting back to a person who can squat 500 pounds. If all you do is squat and bench press,
but you never address working on your balance, working on your timing, working on your mobility,
then you're cutting yourself short as an athlete. You're losing that competitive edge, because
when you get on the football field or the basketball court or the softball field or
the volleyball court or whatever sport you're in, you might have strength, but you're lacking
in other areas of your game. If you were to take your game to the next
level, find what your weaknesses are and bring those weaknesses up to a certain level. In
a nutshell, the four components of performance, strength, balance, timing, mobility, find
out where you are, address those areas accordingly.