Entries by Ian King

The child and the injury – Pt 2  

The older sibling was not at our 10 year old team training. He was waiting at the car with him mother, waiting for his younger brother to finish. The mother said to me: “Did you know that ‘Peter’* did a grade two strain of his calf on the weekend?” The boy’s 12 years old. It’s […]

The child and the injury – Pt 1  

There we were, ten or so ten year old boys and myself – in the middle of the oval, in a circle – conducting the pre-training stretching routine as I do. As I have done for over thirty years. Obviously, it has evolved somewhat, and this version is adapted to the age group and time […]

Economic reflections of a coach  

I was tucking my son into bed recently when he “Dad, can you explain to me why you say there are big problems with the economy?” As any parent would know, this is not the best time to engage in a high level discussion, however he asked, and I did my best. That was my […]

The Top Five Dumbest Exercises

My motivation for writing this article is the continual damage to bodies and wasting of time and energy I witness on a daily basis. For the last thirty years I have worked in physical preparation to save people from damaging their bodies and wasting their time with inappropriate training methods and exercises. Perhaps naively I […]

Burnt at the stake

One more time won’t kill me In 1997 I labelled the 1980s as the decade of aerobic training: You could call the eighties the decade of researching aerobic training, –King, I., 1997, Winning and Losing And I challenged the dominant values of that decade, only to be figuratively speaking burnt at the stake as a […]

He never did – a lesson in gratification

A young personal trainer wrote to me and said something along these lines: I am a (hopefully) up and coming strength coach …. He never became a strength and conditioning coach. He later wrote to say something like this: I plan on returning … in the spring and will be trying to get in touch with […]

The rock and the snake  

A few weeks ago I went into my gym and discovered a large puncture hole in the wall.  I seen my share of firearm puncture holes and my first instinct was to wonder what size caliber firearm had been used to pierce the walls, and cause the inward flapping of the wall sheets. I felt under seige. […]

The price the children pay  

I looked at two young boys (7 year olds) for their dad, as part of their long term preparation for sporting success. I showed dad what I saw. No, they didn’t stretch. Yes, there were very active in sport and had already done a lot of training. I shared my concerns re injuries with this […]

I don’t know if you made this up or stole it from someone – but lets credit you anyway

First they steal, meaning they publish material with no credit. Then they continue to take the credit years later – 12 years later in this case….. This from a person who claims to ‘have read everything ever written in this industry’: “This illustrates Cosgrove’s short-term overreaction and long term under-reaction concept.” –Boyle, M., The Static Stretching […]

The moral and economic decline of a once great nation  

My attention was brought to a recent US blog extolling the benefits of stealing. From the outset, I say perhaps I have lost touch with the ‘new world’, because I was stunned by the content and the message. Apparently, if you are not stealing: • You do not have the keys to being a good […]