Ian King

Is it really going to help them become a better athlete?  

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If they can’t catch and pass there is no value in teaching them how to wrestle!

The young athlete was receptive and hard working, a pleasure to work with. It was his first speed session with me, and it really did need it! We went through a series of basic drills relevant to his need and it was apparent they would really help with his specific sport, a running power sport.

Towards the end we engaged in a time-tested staple of speed development, starts from on the ground. It was really challenging for him however he was fully committed. How did I judge this commitment? By the way he fell to the ground a number of times shortly after the start. Now I always warn the new athlete that this may occur and encourage them that if that happens it is not only okay, but that it means they are committed.

As we got to the end of the session he spoke candidly about the obvious limit in his ability to accelerate up from off the ground. “We have a martial arts coach come in to coach us, and he has told us that you should stand up first then run.” Perhaps explaining why he had been so challenged in the last drills.

I took the time to explain the benefits in transfer to his sport from being able to accelerate from a low body position.

At the same time ruing the popular trend of bringing in an ‘advisor’ coach from another sport because something concluded that this was help the athlete in a different sport. Take wresting for example. This is a out-of-sport skill that is being taught to Australian rugby codes in a ‘must-do’ way, spreading down to even athletes in primary school.

Yes, you could find 101 ways to justify how skills from another sport could transfer into any particular sport. What is missing is the discernment in coaching decisions that reflect the wisdom to know what to bring in and when.

Here’s a hint – if an athlete can’t catch and pass, and is in a hand-eye coordination sport – there is little justification for them learning non-specific skills such as wresting. That’s just one simple example. And when coaches do choose to import ‘advisors’ from other sports, ideally select one that through experience measured in success they have a high level ‘feeling’ for the specific skills and movement patterns in the sport they are advising to!

In summary, you don’t have to follow the trend of importing advisors from other sports. And if you do you need to review and reflect on the accuracy of the ‘advice’ they are giving. You can and should make your own mind up about their relevance at any given time of your athletes progress!

Ian King

Cardio is not evil! Seeking to balance the BS…again…decades later  

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I recently received an email that from a great man and avid KSI fan, and I thought the content was worth sharing with you!

Hi Ian, I just ordered book III. In your previous books you downplayed the role of cardio, or so it seemed. As I have got older (I’m 52) cardio has taken a larger role in my training – I want to stay in the same size pants! I also am active in other sports – hiking, running, mountain biking – and am currently gearing up to climb 14,442’ Mt. Rainier in June.

So the question is how will cardio work with the next book’s programs? I have to say that I’ve been pleased with the progression I have seen as I have gone through the Book of Muscle programs and then the GB I and II. At 52 and 160lbs I’m still squatting and deadlifting 400lbs for 1 rep max. Bench is a little off but that’s a function of shoulder pain. I imagine the cardio has limited my lifts, especially the squat, but wanted your opinion. I’m not ready to give up on my other activities and wanted some input on how to combine the two most effectively.

A secondary question is that of repeating some of the GB programs. I used the neural training/advanced rep scheme in book two. If I wanted to repeat with more emphasis on hypertrophy, would it make sense to repeat – or just progress to book III?

Thanks for your help. Following a progressive routine has really helped me push through some barriers that I thought I would ever see again. It’s nice to a small, “old” man outlifting some of the bigger “kids”! –Ken

Ken – great to hear you are continuing your education with our books! Let me give you some historic perspective about my published comments on what you call ‘cardio’.

I noted during the 1980s the promotion of the ‘aerobic base’ in sport. I tried it, and for the most part found it flawed, and certainly lacking in any evidence to support the level of rhetoric.

I also noted the rise of aerobic training post the late James Fixx and Kenneth Cooper influence, in the general population, during the same period. Again, I felt it was exaggerated.

I sought during the 1980s and 1990s to balance the published information, sharing an alternative view.

Post my comments which many perceived were ‘anti-cardio’ (because there were the to other end of the continuum than the dominant paradigm), many trend-spotters jumped on the bandwagon and over-reacted.

The new paradigm driven by these over-reactors was that endurance or cardio was useless. One of the specific over-reactions and questionable claims was that the best way to lower body fat was by high intensity anaerobic type circuits. Now personally I have done both, in my personal training, in my professional coaching of elite athletes, and in vocational training – and certainly didn’t share these ‘new conclusions’.

So what you have is general population clients lacking the preparation and conditioning, engaging in high intensity circuits (boot camps, trendy toy based circuits like swinging ropes and flipping tyres, and ‘cross-fit’ like methodology) and creating a new wave of injuries leaving the physical therapy and joint replacement industries licking their lips. And by the way, typically failing to produce the marketing claims of ‘melting your fat off like butter in a frypan’, and other clinically crafted emotionally-effective marketing scripts.

I have written at length about my conclusion that ‘human over-react in the short term and under-react in the long term’. (not to be confused with the repetitive use of my saying by the industry’s greatest plagiarist).

I have also written at length about the industry direction of lying, cheating and stealing, where how you train and what you think is secondary to the immediate cash flow and perception of greatness sought by certain class-leading bullshitters.

I have also since sought to publish to once again correct the unbalanced influences, however the size of the wave triggered by my original ‘anti-aerobic’ statements is such that is unlikely a person lacking the motive to compete in the bs-marketing stakes can ever really effectively suppress or correct in the short term.(br>
So after a long winded intro, to answer your question… So the question is how will cardio work with the next book’s programs?

Why not? Now of course it really depends on all the variables involved and as such I don’t make guru-like assumptions. What I suggest you do is understand that any training method has many variables that can and should be manipulated and the only way for you to learn what works for you is to record the training and the results over time, and reach your own conclusions. Then share them with others who value objective observations about the cause-effect relationships in training.

What I don’t want you to do is fear doing or using a training method based on incorrect conclusions or over-reactions about the efficacy of any particular training method.

High intensity cardio has potentially more interference potential with your strength changes, however if you used periodization in the way I teach, you can perform maintenance strength training in periods where you may want to do more intensive energy system training.

I am really impressed with your continuity and commitment in training, so keep this going. I’m not surprised you have received great results using my programs – because they were only published after decades of refining them and confirming their effectiveness (one of the many things that make my works unique – its patiently time based and actually what has worked, as opposed to latching onto a new trend to appear to be ‘cutting edge’).

With regard to returning to hypertrophy training – I will start every year out doing the program from the GB book or similar. Which makes me smile when people want to bypass this book and program for the more advanced books and program.

I’m proud of you outperforming the youngsters, and encourage to continue with this, because for me, we were born to train, and when we stop training, you know what happens. It’s the opposite to being born!
–Ian King

Ian King

Stop doing walking lunges! (Especially in the warm up!)  

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Why I tell the world to stop doing walking lunge (especially doing the warm up)

Following my post where I pleaded for the world to stop hurting themselves with walking lunges, especially in the warm-up, I was asked by the readers to explain why I said this. I treated their questions with the respect that a genuine desire to learn deserves, and took the time to share the following thoughts.

I want to clarify that no exercise is ‘bad’ – however the way we implement or combine or include them can make the extremely inappropriate for the majority – like the walking lunge!

…from my observations, most physical preparation programs do more harm than good. They may give short term results or confidence to the athlete, but result in significant performance restrictions and or injuries long term.

The more an athlete participates in physical preparation, including the younger they start in physical preparation, the greater the incidence and severity of injury. Unfortunately these injuries are being blamed away by many involved in sport as being a function of the increased demands and impact forces in ‘modern day’ sport. This to me is little more than an excuse, an exercise in putting one’s head in the proverbial sand. Quite simply, the majority of training programs are flawed from a physical preparation perspective and are causing the increased injuries.
–King, I., 2005, The way of the physical preparation coach, p. 66-67

Here’s seven reasons why I tell the world to stop walking lunge. I know what many will say – as I mentioned in my post, the world is making great grounds in life departments such as ‘clear living’. However when it comes to exercise, we are back some 30 years ago….

1. HISTORY – WHERE DID IT COME FROM? Thirty years ago, the walking lunge was almost the exclusive domain of the college basketball player in US strength and conditioning program. I am sure there were some other pockets of use history including for example certain martial art disciples, however there was little other reference or application. The lunge existed n bodybuilding, but the walking lunge as we know see it – conducted by all ages, both genders, all strength levels, at any stage of the workout but most commonly in the warm up – that is a post 2000 phenomenon.

So where did it come from? I suggest that the walking lunge is a trend driven by ‘authors’ who lack the experience and wisdom to understand what they are recommending. With the promotion of the ‘functional training’ movement (advanced by one company in particular with strong commercial interests in the sale ‘functional’ equipment) combined with continued desire to suppress effective and appropriate stretching in the warm up – the walking lunge found its way into books about exercises that should be done, including in the warm up. These trend spread from sport to sport, and then down the ages, like a disease creeping around the world with no geographic boundaries. You cannot go out into the world of sport on any given day and not witness its application, in particular in the warm ups.

When I see groups of athletes and individuals being guided to perform this movement, in particular young athletes in their warm ups, I immediately conclude that their coach is a trend-following non-thinker who has not done many of the exercises they recommend. If they did they would tell you what most young athletes would tell you if their voices were not suppressed – walking lunges hurt their knees!! Coaches do them because they choose to blindly follow the dominant trend and actively seek to appear to like all their peers. And it is a dominant trend globally – one that will during the next 10-40 years see an expansion of the knee and hip replacements at a rate that will please the joint replacement industries, doctors and physical therapist. At a cost to both society and the individual that will rival the strain on the economies that poor nutritional and lifestyle choices make.

2. INAPPROPRIATE WARM UP EXERCISE. The lunge is a loaded strength exercise. If it was being conducted in an adult strength program it would come with some sub-maximal repetitions. At what stage of a warm up protocol is it appropriate to apply what is more most people a maximal if not supra-maximal loading in the warm up? The wear and tear on the patella-femoral joint (under the knee cap) is significant and serious and little time passes before you have eroded the cartilage or bone surface, and experiencing conscious knee pain. If the lunge or walking lunge would be done for valid reasons by an advanced athlete, ideally it would be conducted after appropriate warm up activities and sub-maximal sets.

Put simply – there are very few people on the planet that could safely execute a bodyweight walking lunge in their warm up routine and successfully avoid any short or long term knee damage or pain from doing so.

3. THE LUNGE DOES NOT IMPROVE FLEXIBLITY AND IS NOT A STRETCHING EXERCISES. The walking lunge is not an flexibility exercise and does not contribute to increased length. At best it might maintain range, however the subsequent muscle soreness and associated tightness in the quadriceps and hip flexors ultimately means you will lose range. It lacks the element of relaxation which is key to creating changes in connective tissue length, and is followed by and associated with increased tension and shortening of the connective tissue, as any demanding strength exercise does.

It is a strength exercise. I know of no-one who should be doing in their warm up, where the warm up is less than 30 mins, and that includes the elite male strength athlete. It has no place whatsoever in the warm up routine of a young or developing athlete. Yes where will you most likely see it being done – in the warm up routine young or developing athletes.

4. MUSCLE BALANCE AROUND THE HIP AND THE IMPLICATIONS OF THIS IMBALANCE. When I released the ‘Lines of Movement’ concept in 1998, something I had been developing for the prior decade, it was a result of my awareness of the need to balance the muscles around the hip – especially the quad/hip flexor group and the posterior chain group – hamstrings and gluteals. I was concerned that the plagiarists who hijacked this concept and published it unreferenced would lack the understanding and passion for the intent of this concept such that their frequent publishings would advance this understanding. In hindsight my concerns were founded. In fact, these same plagiarists, even after moving to someone else’s concept because they need to be seen to be new and ‘cutting edge’ – demonstrate their lack of understanding of my concept and its intent with the exercises programs and equipment they promote in their more recent ‘writings’.

What I am saying is that the cause I set out to help – the health of the hip and knee and all connective tissue of the lower extremities – has not been served by the shallowness and lip service that my Lines of Movement concept set out to solve.

Balance : all things being equal, and independent of any specificity demands, the selection of exercises should show balance throughout the body. For example for every upper body exercise there would be a lower body exercise. For every upper body pushing movement, there would be an upper body pulling movement. For every vertical pushing movement there would be a vertical pulling movement. For every hip dominant exercise there would be a quad dominant exercise. And so on. –
– King, I., 1998, How to Write (book)

[NB. The above quote should not be confused with the verbatim and paraphrased copies that have appeared in many unreferenced sources since.]

What we have in the lunge and walking lunge is an exercise that is at the extreme end of the continuum of quad dominant exercises, which the is not balanced by sequence, volume or load potential by another exercise. Quite simply – athletes exposed to this misguide trend of the walking lunge develop imbalances between their quads dominant and hip dominant muscles (the terms I provided in my ‘Lines of Movement’ concept. As such they experience a higher frequency and greater severity of lower extremity injuries – both soft tissue and bone. Groin, abdominal, hamstring, quad, and calf strains. Shin splints. Knee pain.

5. EXCESSIVE LOADING AND RANGE FOR STRENGTH LEVELS If a coach had any ability or awareness to assess each individual athlete for their ability to safely and effectively execute a lunge, let a lone a walking lunge, they would realise that the vast (more accurately overwhelmingly) majority of athletes being asked to perform these exercises lack the ability to tolerate the strength of their own body weight through the full range or in most cases, any range at all. Therefore even if a coach sought to justify inclusion of this exercise on the basis that the athlete needed strength in this range, there is no basis for justification on the grounds the athletes lacks the strength to tolerate the movement. In essence, not only do we have the injury creation realities of excessive loading and inadequate warm up, we also face the transfer of poorly executed loaded movement to sport.

In other words, not only are we injuring the athlete, which in itself is a solid performance decrease, there is also massive potential for the adaptation to these inappropriate movement patterns to further cause performance deterioration.

6. INAPPROPRIATE LOADING WITHOUT SUFFICENT WARM UP. If for whatever reason you believed this exercise were appropriate for you, there are a number of strategies I would strongly recommend you implement. You will note these are not implement by the hordes of young athletes around the world being led to execute these movements in their warm ups. You can learn more about these in my education especially my Level 1 KSI Coaching Course, but here’s some tips to get you going:

a. Joint mobilizations: I teach another unique concept where I apply passive joint preparation drills in the warm up process, particularly relevant for knees. I developed these for personal use whilst rehabilitating my knees post surgery, so I have a very personal connection to the role and benefit of these drills.

b. Control drills prior: another unique concept I introduced to strength training was the concept of performing certain drills to switch on the muscles, especially the stabilisers that control the movement – prior to loading.

c. Warm up sets. How do you do a warm up set of a walking lunge at less than or at 50% of your work set load when your bodyweight is your work set load? That is the challenge for you – because you need to precede these movements with a warm up.

7. LOST OPPORUNITY TO DO SOMETHING MORE APPROPRIATE. Now I am talking about lost opportunity. I believe (nothing new about this!) that time is your only truly limited resource, so use is wisely. I know a lot of things that would be far more effective use of your time than the walking lunge, especially in the warm up. Take for example strength – real stretching. I know, we are in an era in the worlds history where you have been conditioned (during the Decade of Deceit, 2000-2010) that stretching is bad, will make you weak, will cause you to injured, should only be done at the end of the workout, blah blah blah. I don’t ever want to be following what the masses do – how can I give athletes the performance advantage if I am doing what everyone else is doing?

Look at it this way. If you do it the way everyone else is doing it – all things being equal, how are you going to be better than everyone else? Realistically changes do occur (albeit slowly) in sport training – because someone dared to do it differently. These people gain the advantage, are at the cutting edge. The sheep follow. Which do you want to be?
— King, I., 1997, Winning and Losing (book) And I also aim a genuine desire to have an injury free career and life for the athlete.

Conclusion So what does the future hold for you and the walking lunge? I have no doubt that sometime in the next 10-30 years there will be a mass shift away from this exercise, driven by a belated awareness of the damage is had caused. I have placed more concepts and theories in the market that I can remember that were unpopular at the time yet some years later became mass accepted. Typically, at the tipping point of acceptance, a ‘trend spotting author’ that relies on publishing to maintain market credibility and income, will with great fanfare ‘bring these concepts to the market’, with no reference to the pioneers. The mass acceptance of what I teach you now about the walking lunge will be great for the individuals whose training lives begin after this shift.

But what about the ones who have been doing this movement for years now, or will be doing this movement for the time between now and when the market perception shifts? They will pay the price.

Take advantage of what I have shared with you. It is just one of the many training theories and concepts I have formed and shared during the last 30+ years. However one idea that will give you longer and better quality life will be better than none!

So what will it take for you to benefit? However for you to benefit from this wisdom you will need to possess a human trait that perhaps only 5% or less of the population do – you will need to be comfortable breaking the mould, going against the grain, declining these movements when others blindly follow. This will most likely determine whether you will benefit as of now from this wisdom I have shared. What will others think?

I know personally the stones that paradigm shifters get thrown. The irony is that those who mock you today will one day be doing what you are doing. One example of that is burned into my memory is one particular coach who was extremely scathing about my concepts – and then published them for the ensuing 10 years without a single reference. It wasn’t much fun to watch or be part of, but it was a great example of what those who get left behind are willing to do to appear as if they were at the forefront of ‘new ideas’ all along.

Resist the temptation in program design to conform to mainstream paradigms simply for the sake of conforming, no matter how dogmatically they are presented, or how much you may be ridiculed or ostracized for trusting your intuition over conformity. Make our own minds up based on a combination of respect for your intuition, the athlete/client’s intuition, the results, and in respect of the body of knowledge available.
— King, I., 2005, The Way of the Physical Preparation Coach

I share the above for the same reason I train athletes –because I want to give them the best that I can to help them be the best they can be. As you can see I lack the motive of appeasing, impressing or endearing myself to my peers. I understand that my approach to training will always antagonise the emotionally immature, whose ego attachments are threatened by ideas or actions they do not do. In our coach education we attract those who seek to fulfil their po9tential, as opposed to those who seek to protect their ego. And as for the athletes – they are very happy to receive the best training guidance available in the world, giving them an injury free career and life, and placing them on the podium ore often than otherwise!

And now with the internet, if you are a non-athlete training, and have succeed to battle you way through the static on the ‘net and found these teaching that for the last few decades have been exclusively for a small elite and very fortunate group of elite athletes – that’s to your credit! Enjoy the rewards!

Ian King

The only coaching program that can and does teach the art of coaching by doing

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Every day my coaches and I train athletes, and every day provides new experiences. Today one of my coaches and I were working on a few elite athletes from another country. One of them asked later how I learnt what I did. I said:

“By training athletes”.

Another asked how my coach learnt his skills, and this got me thinking. My answer was:

“By working beside me in many different individual athlete and coach situations in many different sports at all levels in many different countries over many years.” 

As I reflected on how competent the top KSI coaches are, I was reminded of how special our program is. I believe no one offers a teaching experience like this. Yet I am continually amazed at how many are drawn to the bright lights and seductive marketing of certain programs, only to feel short-changed. I can understand how easy it is to be tricked into believing these ‘teachers’ will improve your coaching.

I know one personal trainer who we gave a work experience opportunity to about a decade ago. This personal trainer was simply giving a guided experience in how to write a generic program (and he choose to take the program and publish it and sell it in more than one publication for personal gain) This personal trainer never met the players, coaches or administrators. Never even laid eyes on them, let alone coached them. This personal trainer never saw any interaction between myself and athletes, in this program or any other. And yet ever this personal trainers marketing has claimed  they have worked with elite players in this code, which we have good reason to believe this ‘personal trainer’ refers to the one generic program with no athlete contact.

You learn little by exchange of information compared to what you learn when you are actively involved, observing or assisting, in high level coaches executing their competencies. If you want to learn how to physically train athletes, I suggest you take more than most in reviewing your choices in teaching before investing your time and money.

It’s really nice that you are making charitable contributions however I suggest more worthy causes for this charity than the ones you have been donating to! I also feel you may actually want to learn how to coach one day (just maybe) and get value for your time and money.

Real athletes. Real coaches. Real learning. The KSI Coaching Program. The only program than can or does teach the art of coaching by doing.  http://bit.ly/10pXQu3

Ian King

Looking for the messages from the Lance events  

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Watching the Lance Armstrong drug allegations situation I feel this event may be more significant that it appears on the surface. It certainly raised a lot of questions for me – including how far into cycling will the expose go and will it jump to other sports. However the biggest question I have yet to answer is why such a big name American athlete has been ‘taken down’. If you read between the lines there has arguably been a degree of protection offered to high profile US athletes in relation to positive or potentially positive drug tests, so why Lance?

I can only think of two possibilities. Firstly he really upset someone. However the collateral damage to the sport of cycling is too big for this. Which leaves me with my second possible answer – it’s a genuine desire to play it straight, a rare example in a sporting landscape that has all the rules but so few ever get caught up on the wrong side of the rules.

If this is the case, what is driving this position of greater integrity? Is this a sign of the promise of 2012 and the ushering in of a higher social values with the Age of Aquarius?

This will be interesting to watch, to see if this is just that or an aberration before things return to the way they were.

Nike’s decision to cut ties with Lance was either a case of their corporate ethics genuinely being violated, or they were concerned about the impact on their bottom line. Either way, it was a significant move.
One thing I can say with certainty is that I have not seen any promise of this greater integrity in corporate or organizational ethics in physical preparation. I am familiar with certain US companies that see fit to continue to retain and endorse certain individuals who values and actions include publishing other peoples works unreferenced, uncredited and in many cases verbatim, and on a number of occasions claiming or inferring it as their own. In essence, what I believe has been the greatest intellectual property heist in modern physical preparation. Yet these companies still endorse and engage these individuals.

Will the corporate integrity shown in cycling and Nike spread to physical preparation? I hope so, for everyone’s sake.

Ian King

And then it was over

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I was driving past a playing field at 6am this morning and saw a group of young people participating in a group training session. I thought on my way back I would stop and watch, get some cultural insights. A few minutes later I was back, and pulled over, enjoying the fresh morning sun and the crisp morning air. They were stretching, in a static hip flexor position, a very popular one, however it only covers half the work needed in that area, so I hoped they would show greater variety in this position. They didn’t. In fairness I didn’t know if they had done this before I stopped. But what I did note was they were doing two stretches in one – an upper body one at the same time they were doing a lower body one. I could see the influence for this, as it’s a current dominant trend.

I was looking forward to the rest of the workout. Then they stopped. I was wondering if it was a drink break, but by the way they were back slapping and packing up I realised it was all over.

Then I remembered – you only do static stretching, at the end of the workout! Another new trend. Then I saw the heavy ropes being packed up, and the Prowler. That was all I needed to know – they were doing all the ‘current things’.

I have had this discussion with many around the world – athletes, coaches, and personal trainers. And one thing keeps coming up – they can rationalize the benefits of it. Overlooking the fact that most of these rationalizations are little more than parroting the marketing – let me make this point. I am not interested in whether you think it is beneficial. I want to know if it is the best thing to be doing. I want to know if you have asked yourself this question. I want to know if you have put in the energy that the end users adaptations deserve as to whether what you are doing is the best choice.

Now if you are involved in personal training, I can cut you some slack. Expectations on outcome are less precise. The main concern is the injury potential of what you are doing. But if you are involved with athletes, there is more weighing on your decisions as the outcome as measured by competitive success is more specific – very specific – and the rationalization that it’s a dominant trend or you can regurgitate the benefits are of even less value, and any absence of discernment in decision making more potentially serious – you are now not only dealing with injury potential, you are also dealing with performance decrement or increase.

The unique thing about sports training is you can’t market or convince your way onto the podium.

So I repeat – I am not interested in the rationalization of the benefits of your training choices. I am not interested whether what you choose to do is the current dominant trend (in fact I am almost definitely going to be concerned if this is the case). I just want to know how much discernment you are willing to employ in your decision making. The world needs more discernment, less non-thinking compliance to training methods and exercise equipment.

Ian King

Can’t attract athletes clients? Three solutions  

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In my opinion most athlete preparation is doing more harm than good to most athletes. This statement should not be a surprise to those who have read my works over the last few decades. What surprises me is that so many decades later nothings changed. In fact, I fear it’s got worse. In seeking to understand why this might be I reflect on the career path of most would-be athlete preparation coaches, and share these reflections with you. You might not like what I say, although it is not written with any intent to offend. It does challenge the dominant thinking, so on the basis of this I understand that this may be the effect. However if so few as one athlete is saved from the rubbish training and subsequent career shortening and performance decreasing training stimulus that most athletes get exposed to, the bruising of the reader and the stab wounds in my back will be worth it.

After over thirty years of coaching athletes and educating coaches I have seen the athlete preparation industry go from being an unknown and unheard of role to being a frequently sought after career path. I have also seen many express their desire for the opportunity to train athletes, and watched how they have gone about it. My interest in this has been more than casual, due to my concurrent role in both training athletes and educating coaches. I will share with you the two most popular solutions I have seen used by those seeking to become trainers of athletes. I share them with you not because I endorse them, but rather because this is what I see. I don’t like these solutions and I will tell you exactly why that is. Then rather than leaving you with what not to do, I will share my preferred solution.

Solution 1 – Get higher levels of education

I watched a number of young men graduate from sports science degree in the 1980s and long to work with athletes. Nothing happened. One sustained himself with teaching first aid courses, and the others worked as gym instructors. After a few years most went back to university and obtained higher degrees. Then they succeed in obtaining work with athletes – by impressing the sports administrators, not by attracting the athletes independently.

I was working with a professional national league team in the late 1980s and early 1990s when a young man approached the team. He had never trained athletes before but he was involved in a higher degree course. The coach hired him on the basis of that.

I have seen this solution unfold on many occasions. A graduate wants to work with athletes, but cannot attract them. They go back to university and armed with the authority of their research needs or conclusions, they approach coaches and sporting administrators to gain work. This solution is very effective it seems, and the social status of ‘research’ may hold the explanation. When I say successful, I am referring to the would-be coach. Not the athlete. If you can’t coach, if you can’t attract athletes, there is nothing in a higher degree course that I have seen that is going to make you a better coach, or more likely to attract athletes. They don’t care. They go where their instincts tell them they can trust. Except in a team sport situation – their contractual obligations require them to conform and work with the ‘physical coach’ hired by their team.

As a result many athletes get trained by highly qualified inexperienced and incompetent coaches. The end result – shorter careers and lost opportunities, due to the application of performance decreasing and injury producing training methods.

Now let’s get real clear – I am not attacking higher education. I am critical however of the use of this socially respected qualification to back-door into coach athletes. If you can’t coach, if you lack the gift or the competency, getting a piece of paper, doing some research, and reading a lot of ‘information’ doesn’t change this. I know that is going to upset a lot of people, but irrespective of the unstoppable march of ‘research’ credibility, there is an art to coaching, and I have never seen this art taught successfully in a university.

I believe this trend will continue. In fact you will probably need a PhD in a decade or so just to get hired by many teams. Just remember – this doesn’t mean you can or should coach. It means you are more likely to get a job with a sports team, and more athletes are going to suffer for this.

I call this the back-door approach to coaching – what you can do to get into coaching if you can’t coach. I also liken it to the ‘bail-out’ strategies used by governments during the Global Financial Crisis of the late 2000s’. In the second half of the 2000’s decade a number of national economies got into strife (and are still there). The solution of choice by many governments was to ‘bail-out’ selected industries and companies. Those who support the free market system suggested that the bailed-out industries should have been left to market forces – if that meant they collapse and disappear so be it.

What will be the implications of the bail-out solution? The future holds the answer to this question.
Imagine what would happen if the ability to attract athletes based on competence rather than qualifications or marketing was the system applied? I suggest many currently employed would be out of a job, and many athletes would be better off for this.

Solution 2 – Market Yourself

This scenario starts out the same way, typically with a young person who has graduated from their sports science course and fails to attract athlete clients. The only difference is now some don’t wait to graduate to employ this strategy.

Here’s a great example. In the late 1990s I was approached by a young man who expressed his burning desire to gain employment training athletes. He expressed this goal in his CV, in his emails, and verbally.

“Objective: To gain a full time professional strength and conditioning position with a professional sports organization or high level training facility.”

He had graduated some five years prior and was having no success. He had hoped gaining access to my information would be the key to him overcoming this challenge and finally attracting athletes. It wasn’t.

“I have read “so you want…” thoroughly. While I agree with your statements it is easier for you with an established record to attract new clients than it is for an “outsider” like me to break in. The reason I’m asking is to see where my weaknesses are – what is holding me back in other words as I’m failing to identify it somehow.”

Even when I sought to help him out be referring athletes to him it didn’t work.

“Incidentally the volleyball team that you put me in contact with didn’t return my emails. I guess I’m not important enough yet.”

He could not understand why it wasn’t happening.

“I don’t think it is qualifications – I have a bundle – and I don’t think its training experience – I have lots of that – it just seems to be sports teams/organisations in general that I can’t break into …Your other comments as regards not allowing administrators to evaluate you is a good one – but until I am “in” as it were I don’t see what I can do to avoid it.”

Finally he began to lose hope and consider alternative career paths.

“I’d like to move out of the personal training field and train athletes exclusively but bills need to be paid. I’ve been at this gym since late Sep and was this week offered the head personal trainer position — unsure as to whether or not to accept it — the money is a little more – but the job becomes more of an administrative position….I’m just concerned as to whether or not the move to an administrative position would “hurt” my career in the longer term (ie the goal being to train athletes similar to yourself).”

Then he found marketing. With the tools developed by a fellow failed coach turned marketing expert, he was able to market his way to his desired perception of significance. Through self claims and claims through third party, the perception was promoted.

“In the fitness industry I am probably best known for my ability to design programs…

…he has a stable of Olympic and national level athletes that swear by his training methods.

…he’s a performance coach….”

He just needed to take another coaches experiences and training theories, mix them with the deception that they were his experiences and conclusions, turbo-charge them with marketing – and voila – he was instantly a great coach worthy of learning from.

In fact people pay top dollar to attend his coach education seminars, and he is given regular speaking opportunities at professional development seminars. And people are influenced by this information. Not bad for a person who failed to attract any meaningful athlete client base. That is, if you think that is good. History has shown – he would starve if he relied on his ability to attract athlete clients based on his coaching ability.

In my opinion there is no positive correlation between marketing competency and coaching competency. Rather I suggest their may be an inverse correlation – the more a person markets the lower their coaching competency. You could liken to the theory of compensating.

Here’s another ‘challenge’ from these first two solutions. The two solutions outlined above are now the dominant methods of choice. So when a young or new coach entering the profession seeks ‘practical’ information, they are more likely to be influenced by those who have chosen these two solutions than any other influence.

If they watch sport covered by television they will see the dominant training trends – and probably copy them. When they select books and articles on the basis of the best marketing – because this is the path I suggest most take in selecting their influences – their minds are filled with a lot of damaging, ineffective and confused training methods. Who does this serve? The egos and the bank accounts of those who seek to achieve the perception of ‘greatness’ through marketing. No-one else.

Solution 3 – Get better

For me this is the only solution that serves the world. If you want to attract more athletes, or any athletes, get better at coaching. Not the answer you wanted, I’m sure. I have seen this concept rejected by many before you, some who have turned to the above two solutions instead.

Imagine this. You get one person and train them. You analyse the results of a long period of time. If the results are not good enough you change, experiment. You don’t talk about it, boast about it, lie about it, embellish it, and post about it. You just do it and accept the realities of the outcome. Then you do it again, and with more people, and get better. You may start with kids. You may not charge when you start. The only constant variable is you do and objectively assess. And keep going. To aid your progress you avoid being influenced by those who failed to attract athlete clients or can’t coach. You selectively choose influences that from your first hand experience you know have coached successfully. It means putting the athlete first, ahead of your own ego.

Yes, this would take delayed gratification. It might be slow. It might be hard work. It might mean not feeling important or significant for a long time. It may mean playing second fiddle to the needs of the athlete. This is why most don’t do this. The first two solutions I reviewed above will get faster results in terms of perceptions. They won’t mean you can coach, and they won’t provide you with the tools to attract an athlete client base independent of team employment for the rest of your life.

What it will mean if you follow my third solution of getting better at coaching is that you will positively enhance the careers and lives of athletes. You will develop skills that will ensure you can put food on the table for the rest of your life. You might not become ‘internet famous’ but you may fulfill your potential to serve others. Imagine that.

It’s your choice. I believe however that the world needs more people to follow solution three.

Ian King

Personal Trainer Professional Development – the KSI Way  

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In 1998 I recorded a live seminar in which I released for the first time a number of my unique, original innovations in training that I had developed, tested and refined in the prior 18 years of coaching. The concepts released in that seminar have proven to be the most influential (and most imitated/copied) concepts on the planet.

The impact and value of these concepts has, in my opinion, been diluted by the extent of copying they have been subject to. Many personal trainers in the US market have been exposed to some of these concepts – however in a diluted, confused and off-intent manner. Here’s a chance for you to get it right.

Spend a day live in seminar and learn first hand, from the source, the most effective methods for how to write and how to teach training programs, aimed at personal trainers.

This one day seminar will be equally divided between ‘how to write’ and ‘how to teach’, using methods many seek to imamate, but only KSI can truly teach – because we created them! These methods are timeless – you will not need to rely on the ‘latest trend’ or the ‘latest equipment’ when you follow the path taught during this seminar.

Take my exercise innovations for example. One of them, the single leg stiff legged deadlift, was first reproduced without consent of acknowledgement in a Men’s Health magazine in the early 2000s, but a so called ‘student’ of KSI. Something went badly wrong, because the picture accompanying the short article was of a person with the non-working leg lifted back up in the air, making the exercise virtually useless. Suffice to say, this ‘variation’ has now become a main-stay of the ‘functional training movement’ – without anyone realizing how this exercise came to be!

Or take my lines of movement concept – you know the horizontal and vertical push/pull, and quad and hip dominant. For the first few years post release most acknowledged the source, however one particular ‘variation’ of this concept changed the word ‘quad’ for ‘knee’. Pity whoever did this didn’t read the original rationale behind my word selection, as clearly outlined in my 2000 ‘How to Teach’ book. And it hasn’t helped that he most prolific publisher of my concept didn’t seem keen to acknowledge the source for the first 10 years after he caused a mass walkout of my 1999 north-east USA seminar!

Or take the business advice I rolled out in my 1999 ‘So you want to become a physical preparation coach’ book. Not be confused of course with the article of the same name with the exception of the words ‘personal trainer’ inserted, published nearly a decade later.

Or take my ‘over-reaction/under-reaction’ saying and concept. In my limited exposure to marketing-dependant US personal trainer ‘education’ I recently learned that it was apparently the concept of ‘another’ persons’!

Or take my concept of ‘Capable vs. Optimal’ – reversing the words to ‘Optimal vs. Capable’ may fool the masses to thinking it is original, but for me the willingness and propensity to flip words around for self serving purposes is at the expense of the receiver of the message.

Or take my philosophies for example. When you read a paragraph that is poorly paraphrased from my book ‘The Way of the Physical Preparation Coach’, such as this one, that a certain internet magazine thought it was okay to leave posted on their site:

My original version 2005:
Resist the temptation in program design to conform to mainstream paradigms simply for the sake of conforming, no matter how dogmatically they are presented, or how much you may be ridiculed or ostracized for trusting your intuition over conformity….

‘Later version’ 2006:

When designing training programs, resist the pressure to conform to any tradition or system of beliefs, no matter how dogmatically that tradition or those beliefs are presented, or how much you get “slammed” for not conforming. This applies to training and life

…and in the same article read the ‘author’ claim the philosophies are based on their ‘own experiences’…how many times do you need to be lied to before you realize it’s not in your best interests?

Or during the last seven years you could have paid anywhere between one to two thousand dollars to attend a Californian based seminar on program design, in which you would have been taught my concepts such as family trees, progressing and regressing exercise, reversing exercise sequence in subsequent programs, using the first stage to develop and correct muscle balances and so on. You would probably have got more value by reading my ‘How to Write’ and ‘How to Teach’ books – at least you would have got the honest original source. It least you would receive honest information. And you could have used that money difference to contribute to a worthwhile charity of your choice.

And even when you read in other’s ‘works’ where they could not be bothered to paraphrase and write exactly the same things, such as this paragraph, which has appeared a number of times verbatim in the ‘works’ of the same ‘author’:

all things being equal, and independent of any specificity demands, the selection of exercises should show balance throughout the body

…I still suggest the message is lost. And then there is of course the issue that you are getting your education from thieves who compound the integrity issue by seeking to claim it as their own…

Now some suggest that they don’t care where they get their information? Let me share some insights – most of what you are being taught has not been done by the marketer teaching you it, because for the most part many of them don’t train. To add to this non-experience based training, you often get ‘athlete preparation’ tips, peppered with vague references such as the first name of a boxing medallist from an Olympic games (at a time when the ‘speaker’ was a teenager)….by ‘coaches’ that are only coaches by virtue of calling themselves a ‘coach’ (or more importantly, a performance expert), who have not accumulated enough coaching experience to warrant teaching anyone.

Now if you are happy to be bullshitted to, go ahead and keep learning from these sources. For those who would prefer to get it straight without the BS, here is your chance – learn from the source!

Personal trainer professional development – the KSI Way! Sunday 19 August 2012, Los Angeles. Register here: http://bit.ly/PkWbfK

Ian King

Caught in the web of confusion re stretching  

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I recently received this excellent question that I believe typifies the mess most find themselves in due to the way information is brokered and thinking controlled by those seeking to be the gatekeepers:

Subject: To Ian King, About your article in T-Mag #89 (Lazy Man’s Guide..) Please Help

Hello, I really need help about stretching because my mind is a mess because of stretching articles (especially in T-Nation and exrx.net), forums etc. There are PNF’s, dynamic, static; before workouts, after workouts…

My story is this: Last year (2010 May), about the pain in my elbow areas, doctor said that I’ve tennis elbow. After a long break, I started to work out 2 weeks ago, again. Because I know that I’ve a problem in my elbow, I worked with light weights. But, after the second workout I felt the same pain again in my elbow area. I went to another doctor this time and he said that I’ve triceps tendonitis. His recommendation was to do a static stretching after the warm-up (but before weight lifting), 20 rep * 30 sec. I don’t really trust Turkish medical system and its doctors but I’m sure he knows much more than I do. Even though the stretching routine he recommended is interesting, I think his diagnosis is correct.

I don’t know what to do. A lot of people say “never do static-stretching before the weight-lifting, static stretching makes your muscles weaker” and this makes me think “My muscles and probably tendons are already weak and if I do static-stretching before the workout, can I become more susceptible to injuries?” Lots of other questions arise while reading articles.

What should I do? The fitness world shouldn’t be this complicated for a newbie! It’s just stretching! 🙂

Thanks Ian.
–xxx

xx – I understand your confusion – a product of the information age as I talk about in my video here: www.getbuffed.net

Before I address your email let me categorically state my opinion – any person training who does not stretch, increases the likelihood in injury with each passing day. Of course that is my opinion, however that opinion is based on more experience than most. In fact, I haven’t found too many who have trained more athletes in more sports in more countries for more years. So if you trust experience, that may mean something. If you trust science only, it won’t. If you want to do what everyone else is doing at any given time, it may not.

Let’s talk about science briefly. Lyn Jones, former Australian and US weightlifting coach, said that scientists are historians. I agree. Squatting was not ‘scientifically acceptable’ until the 1990s. Nor were amino acids and protein powders and multi-vitamins. If you were a person who wanted to conform to science you would not have used these exercises or nutrients until the 1990s. That could have been at cost to you in your training had you been at the grindstone for the prior one to two decades.

In the late 1980s, as the first person to do so, I recognized the role of the pause between the eccentric and concentric contractions in strength training. My theory was not scientifically support until the early 1990s. Did that stop thousands of athletes who I trained between these periods from using and benefiting from my hypothesis that they knew to be my three digit timing system? No. Why? Because athletes don’t wait for science to catch up. Science tends to study what athletes are doing to see if it is justifiable. Science isn’t bad. It’s just behind the front line. You need to decide if you want to wait for science of move with earlier indicators.

Now let’s discuss social conformity. You are not alone is seeking to conform. 95% of the population is estimated to share your beliefs. Then there are the trend spotters, who promote training concepts only when they feel there is enough support so they won’t be considered whacky, but not so much awareness that they can still convince the majority they are the saviour, bringing the news to the people. Stretching is the greatest example of this. I have for over 30 years verbally and in writing supported static stretching. The numbers joining me got very thin during the late 1990s and early 2000s when the crowds seeking to stone us got larger. In fact, I don’t know of any other voice who stood firm on this. Now I see the trend spotters rushing to position themselves as experts in static stretching, making and offering ‘how to video’s’ for their commercial gain. The same people who sought the safety and comfort of the dominant paradigm when it wasn’t safe to venture out with an ‘I believe static stretching is great and should be done at the start of training’ t-shirt on.

So you are not alone. You are joined by the masses, and encouraged by the trend spotters seeking to commercially exploit the latest social trends.

Now back to your story. You were sore so you sought to get stronger. You have accepted another popular dominant myth – that if you are injured it is because you are weak. Mmmm. So you sought to strength it and made it worse. No surprise there.

You should go and kiss that doctor. He is a wise man in his recommendation, albeit his strength program is a bit thin on volume.

You are right – the world shouldn’t be complicated – it’s just stretching! I’ve been saying this for decades! Well, in the 1970s and 1980s is was like this. The books were few but there was not fear or pressure to deny the role of static stretching. It was when those who had positioned themselves as experts in training and research were challenged by the rising interest in stretching during the 1990s that they had to delay the inevitable to give themselves a chance to learn more about an area they had neglected, to maybe train so they could have some to and then position themselves as an expert. Well, they have had a decade or so, and now I see they feel more comfortable about the topic, so the tide is turning – the masses are now being slowly given the green light – by the very same people who held up a red light until they could get a handle on it.

So don’t be a bunny. Do what I did. Ignore all advice and experiment in an objective, rational manner on yourself. Come to your own conclusions about training, without fear or favour. Even if these conclusions leave you alienated by society for a year or 2o.

I wrote this in my 2005 philosophy of training book that may assist: *

p. 17… Resist the temptation in program design to conform to mainstream paradigms simply for the sake of conforming, no matter how dogmatically they are presented, or how much you may be ridiculed or ostracized for trusting your intuition over conformity.

And this from my 2005 bok about stretching and dogma…

p. 39… Due to the significant absence of flexibility training in training programs to date, most athletes, coaches and other ‘experts’ have never been involved significantly in a stretching training program. Despite this, and despite the obvious physical manifestations of lacking ability to demonstrate range of movement, many form outspoken and dogmatic positions on topics including stretching

You should really listen to at least part 1 of my Barbells and Bullshit audio or DVD program (I have loaded part 1 of this series on the KSI membership site).

Thanks for communicating. You are an excellent example of the average person torn between conforming with current trends and social pressures, and doing what they intuitively suspect may be best for themselves. Will what I wrote help? Not sure – depends whether you want to be part of the 95% victims of social conformity or the 5% victors.

All the best.

Ian King

* not to be confused with the blatant paraphrasing copies like this since been published in places that I thought had more integrity:

… When designing training programs, resist the pressure to conform to any tradition or system of beliefs, no matter how dogmatically that tradition or those beliefs are presented, or how much you get “slammed” for not conforming]

Ian King

The child and the injury – Pt 2  

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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 his second serious injury.

I just looked at the ground, bit my lip, and gently shook my head. What could I say? I hear this every day. It’s monotonous. I care about the kids and the family, however we are fighting a losing battle.
I felt like singing a few lines from the song by the band Queen:

“Another one’s gone, another one’s gone, another one bites the dust….”

The weekend newspaper in my city carried a story by a prominent sports doctor stating statistics show sports injuries are on the rise. He stated ‘We must do more’. More lip service, I thought. Like that’s going to happen. I can guarantee you – like taxes – sports injuries will continue to rise.

I had to say something. How do you break it to a mum that most of what her kids do in sport is doing more harm than good? So I said:

“I was just talking about this the other day with my coaches. We were saying how when we were kids, no one got injuries like the kids today. I played sport before school, at every school break, and after school. I didn’t get my firsts sports injury till my first year of high school, and that was a sprained ankle! I played a lot of sport, but admittedly it was play based, not like the formal training the kids do these days.”

Mum reflected on what I said. Then she asked:

“So why do you think this is?”

I responded:

“Adult training is being taken down the age groups. Every year, more adult like training is being done at an earlier age. The adult training is usually flawed. People think professional athlete training is good, so they imitate it. It rarely is optimal. It’s training that used to be done only at adult ages, so the injuries were coming out at about the same time everyone expected the athlete to retire from old age anyway. But now with the same training being imitated at the younger age groups, the flaws in training are evident well before they get to retire, sometimes even before they get to start their adult career! Surgery for sports-related injury before the young athlete reaches twenty years of age is not uncommon.”

I could see the mother taking it in so I continued.

“Playing sport the way it is being done is not necessarily good for your son. Now, your son is in one of the worst sports – soccer. Two things cause this – soccer’s traditional distain for stretching, and the high impact, high volume multi-directional movements on a hard surface.”

Mum responded:

“We are seeing that now!”

And we moved on with our day. Did I make a difference? I’m not sure. The forces of mainstream values in sport are big and strong – and off track, causing more harm than good.

If you have children – and if they are playing sport – have you thought about this? Are you wondering whether what they are doing is doing more harm long term than good? You should be.

* Not his real name