Tag Archive for: KSI

Ian King

Does exercise accuracy matter?

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Introduction

When speaking to physical trainers, therapists and other aligned professionals as I travel on the quest to answer the question ‘What is the best way to train?’, I appreciate learning from them. What they think, what they say, and what they do with athletes and clients.

This journey has involved the privilege of travelling the world for many decades seeing these training trends firsthand.  When asked what the most common exercise I see being done from my innovation, it is, without question, the single-leg stiff-legged deadlift.  The only problem is that I almost never see it being done in the way I intended. It would be difficult to walk into any gym in the world now and not see someone performing an imitation of a small oil rig.

Over time I also hear the words used to describe the exercise and the interpretation of when and how to use it varies more and more.

For example, I was recently in a seminar when one of the participants  – a highly qualified and experienced practitioner, albeit a post-2000 entrant to their profession – repetitively referred to my exercise innovation of some forty years ago as a ‘single leg RDL’. And spoke about their application of it to rehab a client’s chronic hamstring injury. With limited success.

It may have been that little bit of German heritage in myself, but my excellence-at-risk meter tends to rise towards the red line when I see and hear these things that for me are the opposite of exercise accuracy. But perhaps that is my problem. Perhaps exercise accuracy doesn’t matter?

When I speak about exercise accuracy, I refer to the origin, name, execution, the application.  I will continue on with the theme of the exercise I called the single leg stiff leg deadlift.

The origin

In this section, I share my observations of the evolution of the stiff-legged deadlift.

The stiff-legged deadlift

First, there was the stiff-legged deadlift.  It was an exercise done for the most part by competitive lifter – Olympic and power – as a supplementary exercise to pulls and deadlifts.

I described this exercise many years ago in the following way:

MG Stiff Legged Deadlift:  Take a medium grip (about shoulder width) and commence in a standing position.  Lower the bar down by bending at the hips, not at the knees.  In the start, the knees should be slightly bent and remain exactly at joint angle during the lift. [1]

It was a two-legged (bi-lateral) loaded exercise using the barbell.

You will find this exercise championed in books that shaped training through the lat half a century including but not limited to:

The single-leg stiff-leg deadlift

During the early 1980s, I concluded that the dominant approach to strength training was creating muscle imbalances because of the bias in programs towards exercises such as the bench press and the squat.  I didn’t want that collateral damage for the athletes I trained, and I set about developing a categorization of exercises to avoid such imbalance in program design. This led to the concept of ‘Lines of Movement’, where I introduced terms and definitions to place every strength exercise into an exercise category.

 The following shows a breakdown of the body into major muscle groups/lines of movement, and then into examples of exercises. It is what I call ‘the family trees of exercise’. Use this to assess balance in your exercise selection.  

To help you understand how to divide and balance out your training, Ian came up with a list of major muscle groups that reflects their function:[3]

Horizontal pulling (row)
Horizontal pushing (bench press)
Vertical pulling (chin-up)
Vertical pushing (shoulder press)
Hip dominant (deadlifts)
Quad dominant (squats)

So, when I was writing a program, I increased the balance of the program by ensuring balance in the Lines of Movement.

When developing the term ‘hip dominance’ and defining what constitutes a hip dominant exercise, I realized that there were too few exercises in this category and that I needed to match the number, joint involvement and loading potential of exercises in the ‘Quad Dominant’ category.

I leaned on the traditional double leg barbell stiff-legged deadlift to create a single-leg, nil, or low-loaded variation option.

During the 1980s I refined the movement however, as with all my innovations, I trialled and tested it for a decade before extensively publishing it commencing from the late 1990s.

You can see the original exercise in the image below, taken from the How to Teach Strength Training Exercies Video Series (2000).

The ‘Romanian Deadlift’ (RDL)

The “Romanian Deadlift’ appeared in the US in the early 1990s. Initially, this exercise had no known name, or at least not one that the person I learnt it from gave it.  Dragomir Cioroslan, (a former Romanian national weightlifting coach who went on to work with the US Weightlifting team) and his protegee’s were doing a series of demonstrations and seminars during the early 1990s when many, including myself, were intrigued by a unique exercise that they were using as a supplementary exercise – somewhat of a cross between a deadlift and a stiff-legged deadlift.

I had been analyzing the physiques of Dragomir’s athletes for a few days before I got to see them train, and I was puzzled by their hamstring development. There were other shape differences between the and other weightlifters of that era, but that was the one that I linked to this exercise. So, before I got to see them lift, they had my attention.

I began integrating the ‘Romanian Deadlift’ into my training programs and in the absence of a name I called it the Romanian Deadlift, in respect of the origin. I have since noted others came to this same name conclusion. In all publications since that time, I have continued to use that name for this exercise.

The name

By the time I learnt of the loaded bilateral single-joint exercise we called the Romanian Deadlift, I was already well advanced in using the exercise variation I had developed and named the single-leg stiff-legged deadlift.

I began integrating the ‘Romanian Deadlift’ into my training straight away, however, it was not as a substitute or synonym for what I had developed but rather as an additional tool in the toolbox. In my mind they were two different exercises.

Not only was one unilateral and the other bilateral, but also because they were conducted with strikingly different techniques and loading potential.

When I see or hear the term ‘RDL’ to refer to the single-legged deadlift as I had innovated, I question their understanding of that person as to the execution and intent of each exercise.

For me, the only thing they have in common is that they are both relatively isolated posterior chain exercises i.e., they only involve the hip, rather than the knee and the hip.

The execution

To commence the discussion of the difference in execution between the single leg stiff legged deadlift and the Romanian Deadlift, I share the descriptions of each I provided in the late 1990s.

Romanian Deadlift

In plainer terms this is a flat back version of the stiff-legged deadlift.  With the bar on your back, take a shoulder-width stance and slightly bend the knees.  The knee angle is now not to change during the lift.  Flex or lower forward from the waist, keeping your chest up and hip/spine flat i.e. aligned.  Only flex forward as far as you can PRIOR to any rounding of the spine or posterior rotation of the hip.  For most, this will not be very far!

You can also accentuate the hamstring involvement by pushing the bum back and allowing your weight to drift to your heels during the lowering.     During the lift, squeeze the gluts.  This increases the hamstring involvement, which is the aim.[4]

Single Leg standing Stiff Legged Deadlift

Let the fun begin!  Stand on one leg – have the other foot off the ground, but kept roughly parallel with the leg doing the supporting.  Bend the knee slightly, but that knee angle should not change during the exercise (get a partner to watch for this, as it will be tempting to do so!).  Now bend at the waist, allowing the back to round and reach slowly towards the floor.  If your range allows, touch the floor with the fingertips and return to the starting position.  Use a speed of 3 seconds down, 1 sec pause at the ends, and 3 seconds up.

You may struggle with balance, but persist – you will be developing the muscles in the sole of the foot!  The first time you do this you may find you are touching down with the non-supporting foot regularly to avoid falling over.  This is ok, but in later workouts, try to minimize this.  When you have mastered this exercise, and touching of the ground by the non-supporting leg means terminate the set – this is your challenge.

Don’t be surprised if you can only do 5 reps on day 1!  Look to increase the reps from workout to workout.  Hold light DB’s in your hand ONLY when you get to 10 reps at the speed indicated.  No warmup set necessary.   Remember the weak side rule. [5]

Unfortunately for the world’s interpretation of how to execute the single leg stiff legged deadlift, only a few years after I began more openly sharing the exercise in publications, it appeared unreferenced in a prominent magazine, performed in a way that reflected the ‘author’s’ lack of understanding (and perhaps also the male models lack of flexibility, balance and single leg strength – to be able to do the exercise!). Learn more about that here.

To be clear, consider the following comparison:

Variables SL Stiff Legged DL Romanian Deadlift Similar Different
Hip dominant exercise

*
Isolated hamstring Less so More so (1)

*
Number of limbs One (unilateral) Two (bilateral)

*
Loading on feet Central Rear

*
Spine shape Rounded Flat

*
Chest shape Collapsed Up

*
Loading potential Lower Higher

*
  • When done correctly as per the manner originally intended.

Between the descriptions provided and the table above, it may be clearer why I do not see the words ‘RDL’ relevant to the single-leg stiff-legged deadlift. There are far more differences than similarities.

The application

The original rounded-back stiff-legged barbell deadlift is an excellent exercise for strengthening spinal segment strength in addition to hamstrings. However, the political correctness trend in exercise has veered away from exercises and variations that include a rounded spine. That’s unfortunate for athletes who experience loading and/or impact in a less-than-neutral spine shape.

The application of the exercise I innovated, the single-leg stiff-legged deadlift, is not as clear-cut as many assume. In theory, being a unilateral, single-joint exercise, it would have a broad application earlier in the training career, year and return from injury/surgery.

However due to the range involved, the increased loading on the hamstring due to the more bloated nature of the exercise, the increased demand on balance, and the fixed load of the body, this exercise needs to be reviewed and reflected on prior to being included in a training program.

Additional points to consider include:

  • When conducted in an optimal manner (as per it was developed) – with the non-working leg remaining still and parallel to the working leg – the range may be limited by the hamstring flexibility (this was not a problem for me during the developmental decade, because of the premium I placed on flexibility training).
  • If the athlete/client lacks the balance and or range to execute the movement tin the intended manner, you can choose between developing these qualities or default to the influence of allowing the back leg to raise.
  • If you go with the softer option, you are reducing the work (including balance) in general due to counterbalancing of the back leg, and reducing the workload and isolation on the hamstring by allowing the pelvis hemispheres to diverge.
  • Therefore, a decision needs to be made regarding progression – to work on improving range, repetitions, and or load. Generally speaking, I recommend working from the former to the latter.

The Romanian Deadlift (RDL) provides greater loading potential than the single leg stiff legged deadlift version, however, the following are important points:

  • The RDL should not be considered as an equal and opposite of a squat, as the relative loading potential of this exercise compared to the squat is less.
  • The RDL as a rounded back exercise should not negate the inclusion of a rounded back variation in athletes who may be exposed to loads in their sport where the spine is less than in neutral (rounded).
  • If the pivot at the hip joint is not maintained as the exclusive pivot point, the relative load/work/isolation on the hamstrings is reduced.
  • Therefore, considering the progressively reducing nature of athlete flexibility, you may not be working through the range you initially expected or anticipated.

Now to touch briefly on a key point in the application. There has been a long-retained belief, at first in the physical therapy disciplines and now also in the physical training disciplines, that isolated hamstring strength training is the key to rehabilitating or preventing hamstring strains.

Many decades ago, I reached an alternative conclusion. It’s not the aim of this article to go deep on this subject, however, I feel it may be remiss of me to not touch upon it.

Keep in mind my suggestion that if you fail to identify the cause of the injury (and I suggest weak hamstrings are not the cause in the overwhelming majority of cases), then your ‘solution’ may contribute to the problem.

Learning that the single leg stiff legged deadlift – an exercise near and dear to my heart because it is essentially one of my ‘babies’ –  is being used in a ‘hamstring strengthening program’ to rehabilitate athletes with hamstring strains, or prevent hamstring strains, is difficult to hear.  I do not believe the goal will be achieved, and the athlete does not deserve to be a guinea pig for this misguided paradigm.

Conclusion

For almost twenty years now I’ve watched the single-leg stiff-legged deadlift gain global acceptance – in and out of the gym. The only problem was that it was not being done in the intended manner.  More recently I have seen this popularity expand into rehabilitation, and this becomes even more concerning.  And to hear the confusion around the name, such as the use of the term ‘RDL’ in the same exercise name, is a reflection of a lack of understanding o the nuance of the RDL to achieve the hamstring isolation.

Maybe that’s just me being too German-like, seeking precision and excellence in the process.

Maybe exercise accuracy doesn’t matter?

 

References

[1] King, I., 1999, Get Buffed! 1 (book), p. 244

[2] King, I., 1998, How to Write Strength Training Programs, P. 32

[3] Shugart, Chris, 2001, The Ian King Cheat Sheets, Part 1 – A quick and dirty look at all the cool stuff Ian King has taught us so far, Fri, Aug 24, 2001, T-mag.com

[4] King, I., 1999, Get Buffed! I, p. 230-231.

[5] King, I., 1999, Get Buffed! I, p. 210-211.

Ian King

Time, Money & Happiness for the Physical Preparation Coach  

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I was sitting having dinner in North America in October last year with a large group of industry professionals, all accomplished in their own right. One of them was talking about the conference he had presented at during 2016 and I asked the question ‘What was one of the key things that stood out to you about the conferences or the trends evident?’ I didn’t expect the answer.

He said ‘The number of how to make more money presentations. At one of them there were 20 presentations, and 16 of them were about how coaches and trainers can make more money.’

This got my attention, as whilst I don’t believe in the blind following or need to conform to trends, I find value in studying trends to understand human behavior and direction of thinking.

There is no other way to say this – physical preparation as a profession is a relatively low income earning profession. Statistics suggest the average western world income is about $50,000, and the stats I have been exposed to suggest that the average physical preparation coach (all disciples) earns less than $50,000. (Remember this is not gross income, this is take home pay).

So it’s no surprise that the industry has gravitated towards solving this problem. I certainly did, back in the 1990s. More on this later.

So I became more focused on this trend towards the teachings of ‘how to make more money in this industry’. I came upon enough web sites to support the trend, and enough ‘trend spotters’ who were ‘fat loss guru’s’ in the early 2000’s and have now morphed into the dominant trend of financial and business educators for the physical preparation industry.

And I came upon an excellent article from a professional organization who seek to be one of the dominant go-to bodies for professional development. An organization with its fair share of peer-reviewed editorializing. I have concluded that this article is an fair reflection of the dominant thinking of the industry. That there is a need to earn more money, that there is a growing interest, and that the solutions suggested were indicative of the current solutions offered industry wide.

I might be a bit old-fashioned but there is nothing like a written article to provide clarity and confirmation about dominant thinking, as opposed to attempting to objectively assess the message in say internet marketing. So I am thankful for the author of this article for his efforts, and stress that any comments relating to this article should not be interpreted as being critical of the person or derogatory of their work. I am truly grateful for their efforts.

But at the same time I have serious concerns for the receiver of the message.

Back in the 1980s when I took on athletes as clients the majority of them had never done any physical preparation work before – they were for the most part clean skin and easy to shape in their values and beliefs about what they needed to do in training, as well as easy to shape physically.

Now most athletes have not only had prior training experience, the majority are broken physical and in some cases mentally by the time they are in the late teens. In the spaced of 3 decades I have gone from picking up ‘clean slates’ to doing damage control. I believe that the contemporary elite athlete (my market) would be better off if had they had kept out of the physical preparation training they have done during their teens and so on. Just like the 1980s and earlier athletes.

It can take years to salvage the bodies of these athletes. If they can be salvaged. The majority of talent identified athletes who have been in ‘high performance’ training squads from their early teens will be injured and out of the sport by around the age of 20 years.

So how does this relate to you?

The athletes I refer to have been trained by physical preparation coaches whose influence has included the post 2000s period, where unsubstantiated yet highly marketed training information and influences dominated the professional development landscape. I say this from a unique perspective. I watched too many key board warriors, who have never trained with any success, never trained anyone else with any success – in fact some downright failed to attract any client base of athletes at all (don’t believe me – I can show you emails….) – reinvent themselves with skillful internet marketing sprinkled with the license to create a perception of their ‘experience’ and ‘success’ that, well, was simply not true. And people bought it.

I have one such physical coach in a professional development course with me in the mid 2000s. I had them write a program for an athlete, and then analyzed the program. I could see the influences – it was after all the ‘most’ were doing at the time’ and I asked them – ‘Why did you write this?’ I followed this up with ‘Have you ever done these exercises?’ To which the answer was ‘No I haven’t’. Once the student coach acknowledged his source, I said ‘Guess what – the ‘author’ hasn’t done these exercise either!’.

The 2000s witnessed an explosion of made up crap, aimed to give a leg up to those seeking to become ‘experts’, for personal ego and financial gain. Some who bought into this said ‘Well what’s wrong this with?’ Let me say this – if you adopt and share methods that are a product of a desperate yet creative individual lacking in integrity, how do you have to add value to the life’s of others in a meaningful and substantial way? Your influence failed to and therefore turned to bogus and oft-times plagiarized content through they usual e-book delivery method etc.

If you need any further help understand why selling things that lack value or have less value than claimed, study the sub-prime driven financial crisis in the US between 2006 and 2010. The world was left with absolute clarity that selling fraudulent overvalued mortgaged backed security that really didn’t have the claimed value will result in collapse.

From what I have seen the ‘financial education being taught currently in the sport and fitness industry has the same absence of value and integrity that the post 2000 internet-guru based information has. And the risk shifts from damaging your body, to wasting time and effort seeking ‘financial freedom’. It’s one thing to arrive in your golden ages physically broken. Its and additional burden to reach the end of your working life to realize you have been led down the garden path.

So what are the alternatives? Let me share with you a time-tested perspective, from a person who reputation has been established on under-promising and over-delivering, straight shooting, to hell with marketing, no bullshit, tell it as it is.

In the early 1990s I realized the limitations as outlined in the article I refer to (reference below). I became a student of money, time and business. Nearly a decade later, in the late 1990s, I wrote a book on the subject (Paycheck to Passive – Going from working for a living to having a life) and began teaching anyone who would listen about money. This has helped a lot of people financially. I won’t make the claim as one of our Internet gurus has – (“…we’ve been helping millions of men and women.…”). Suffice to say there are people who have publicly credited us for moving their financial education forward substantially. What I am saying is its real.

I also provided some excellent business development guidance in my book ‘So you want to become a physical preparation coach?’ (2000), again which served a lot of industry personal.

From 2000 we set out to mentor our coaches and other business partners in financial education. We did so quietly and personally, as opposed to loudly and mass-produced.

However now that financial education for physical preparation coaches in now a trend subject, with our strength experts one day, fat-loss gurus the next, and business and financial educators the next – the message stands to be lost amongst the bogus claims of rags to riches, multiple 7-figure income business etc.

Now I know there will be some who say ‘So what Ian, any information being shared is good; leave them alone’, as was the typical response to previous alerts to the bogus ‘bibles’ of training. My message is not for you.

My message is for those who firstly realize there is a problem surrounding money in their working lives, seek a solution AND have the intuitive realization that the market is full of land-mines full of bogus ‘experts’.

Now let me clarify – the article I referred to above contained excellent, fundamental concepts. I was actually impressed and happy to see these concepts being taught, such as the limitation of selling your time for money. My concerns go beyond the accuracy of the fundamental.

In relation to anyone teaching financial freedom to our industry, my questions include:

1. What level of mastery in financial freedom does the ‘teacher’ have?
2. What reproducible by others business success do they have?
3. What is the true long-term upside of the strategies they are teaching?

Lets touch upon these three briefly.

1. What level of mastery in financial freedom does the ‘teacher’ have?

For example, how long could this person walk away from their business and not experience much of a downturn of income? Do they typically spend a few months a year on holiday, travelling and enjoying their ‘financial freedom?’

2. What reproducible by others business success do they have?

Who are some of the ‘millions’ of people they have helped transform their life financially – what is the answer to these same questions to their students?

3. What is the true long-term upside of the strategies they are teaching?

Do the strategies they recommend really result in ‘financial freedom’? How many people have you met in your lives that have achieved financial freedom from these strategies? E.g. selling e-books and other information on the internet?

Lets ask this simple additional question – how many first generation, self-made multi-millionaires from physical preparation have you met in your life? (not the internet perception – the reality)

Now I appreciate that at different stages of your career you have varying levels of interest in this subject. In my ‘Money and the Physical Preparation Coach Course’ (2016) I dedicated a unit to identify and discussing the concept of ‘stages of career’, sharing the following ‘stages’:

Phase 1: Blinkered and gullible – Years: 0-10 years into their career
Phase 2: At the crossroads – Years: 5-15 years into their careers
Phase 3: Embracing or denying change – Years: 10-20 years into their career
Phase 4: Living with or without the fruits – Years: 20-40 years into their career
Phase 5: Retiring in comfort or destitution – Years: Last 10-30 years of life

I go into more detail about these phases in that course. None-the-less, I imagine that only those in Phase 2 are still reading, and have concerns on this subject.

However, rather than assume this, I have some questions for you:

1. Firstly, do you believe there is a problem, at least in your life, as it relates to your financial future?

2. How many years have you been in the industry?

3. What are the frustrations or challenges you experience?

No I know it’s tough (especially for us males and our alpha sisters), to acknowledge we have a ‘problem’. Let me share a key paragraph outlining some key ‘problems’ as identified by the article I referred to earlier (1):

“The life of a personal trainer can be great, but trading time for money inherently limits income possibilities with only 24 hours in any given day. Furthermore, only so many of those hours are even available to work with clients. In an effort to make more money in that limited time, personal trainers are often forced to sacrifice personal priorities, service quality, and relationships. This can sometimes lead to frustration, burnout, and ultimately, career changes. 
The average personal training income in the United States is thought to be between $35,000 – $45,000 per year… These numbers seem great for passionate personal trainers starting out, but what about years down the road? Those who want to support a family, retire at a decent age, or create freedom in their career must take steps to rise above these industry averages.” (1)

Does that help? Great, here’s what can happen. Participate in this ‘survey’ and see where it can lead. Send your responses to info@kingsports.net with ‘Ian, here is my MTH&TPPC survey response’.

References

(1) Drake, J., and NSCA Personal Training Quarterly, 2016, The training trap – building financial freedom in an appointment-based career, NSCA December Issue Member News

Ian King

Huddle #23 – Tracing Injuries to the Cause

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Ian King

Throwing the players under the bus – a strategy for failing as a coach  

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The first game of the season showed promise with the team winning the first half easily, and then holding on for the second half to win the game. By the second game this pattern of decline in dominance as the game went on became worse, and the team lost the second half.

I had fears of what was to follow, and my fears were amplified when the field announcer stated the final score and congratulated the visiting team for winning the second half. It was just the announcer looking to give a positive to the losing team, but he had inadvertently drove the nail further into the coffin of his own team.

As I feared, the coach told the team in the post-game talk that they were not fit enough. This code for something’s not working, I’ve got no idea what, but it must be your fault and the easiest blame strategy is ‘you are not fit enough’.

Predictably they trained the team harder in non-specific conditioning work as well as rugby drills during the following week. During the next game the team were the flattest they had been, with limited on-field talk. They almost lost the first half, and ended up drawing the game. This outcome was exacerbated by the fact that the opponent on this day had not won a game in the season to date. Of course, it’s unlikely that anyone took into account that they had played and lost to the competitions top teams.

So what do you do next after blaming fitness? The post-game coach’s speech focused on the lack of intensity, telling the players they needed to play and train with more intensity. I am not sure how you naturally bring more intensity when you are more tired than you needed to be, but that’s the way this scenario played out.

During the week, as you can expect, the team were trained in a way that resulted in the coach happily stating that they had brought more ‘intensity’ to training, inferring this would serve them well in the upcoming game.

In the upcoming game the team lost for the first time, failing to score a single try, and conceding nearly half a century of points.

So what do you do now that you have gone down the path of throwing the players under the bus? You start dropping players. So about 55% of the way through the season players are relegated, with the ensuing drop in personal confidence you can expect from players dropped without knowing why.

How did this work? The next game resulted in a score against that exceeded half a century. Now it was against the second strongest team in the competition, but the fact this team scored as many points as they did against a lowest rank team (a team that the losing team had easily beaten) suggested that the outcome was unnecessarily out of context to the losing teams potential.

So where do you go now? Shuffle players around, playing them out of the position you had them in for most of the season? Basically you run out of options.

Few would disagree that athletes benefit positively from people believing in them, especially their significant others. And who more significant than their coach? On the flip side, again few would disagree that negative impacts potentially result when a coach directly or indirectly tells the athlete they are lazy, don’t try hard enough, are not intense or focused enough, or are not good enough to play at that level.

The challenge with any coach who fails to interpret the cause of their outcomes is further failure. However this failure is magnified in it’s consequence in the team culture where the coach takes the path of throwing the players under the bus.

Whenever I hear a coach who by words or actions blames his players, I see a lesser future for the coach. To put it bluntly it’s a path to failure. This applies no matter what level it is occurring at, bet it the national team or a local kids team.

I have had the fortune of working with coaches who have the strength to deflect the pressure on their team. The long serving Queensland rugby union coach John Connolly was one of these. I was impressed with his choice to absorb the pressure and not throw the players under the bus. However these coaches are the overwhelmingly minority. From my experience, I have observed the majority of coaches blame the players, failing to understand that firstly what goes on is a product of their leadership, and that the act of blaming the players is in the short term the kiss of death to their team’s culture and in the long term the kiss of death to their coaching career success.

Few coaches develop their coaching abilities to the level of being able to consistently and successfully interpret the cause of their wining or losing, and I accept this. However my suggestion that even in the absence of this high level ability, coaches could benefit from avoiding the popular habit of throwing the players under the bus.

NB. The above is fictional story to illustrate the message.

Ian King

Stop injuring the athletes – ACL reconstructions

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I was stretching beside the oval whilst debriefing my son following his high school rugby game and I looked. Three teenage boys from the opposition school were standing nearby, and two of them were in knee braces.

I have been saying for decades now that the rate of injuries to athletes is unacceptable and unnecessary. If fact those familiar with my writings would be appear of my zero tolerance attitude – we can prevent them all.

It has been tragic watching the advent then the rise of the ACL surgery since its introduction around about 1980. A positive sign is the discussions that are now occurring. In two different countries two separate article were published recently, one by a former elite US athlete who never fulfilled his career due to injury and the other by sports medicine advocates in Australia.

One of the many limiting factors in the effectiveness of any intervention that is stimulated by this growing awareness of injury incidence is what I call interpretation. Image ten coaches watching the same game where their team say lost the game. How many different interpretations will come from these ten coaches if they are independently arrived at? Could be ten. And how many of these coaches are high achieving in terms of their association with championships or whatever is the measure of success at their respective levels? At best one of them. And chances are that the coach with the most accurate interpretation.

Understanding why athletes get injured is no different – it is subject to interpretation. And listening to the interpretation provided by this sports medicine expert as to why the incidence of ACL ruptures in the young athlete is so high let me with little comfort that anything will change.

You see these experts cited the reduction in childhood play as the primary cause. I have heard the dominant interpretation amongst my North American colleagues – that the increased injury rate in young athletes is due to the lack of diversification in sports played in formative years and that the athletes are specializing too early.

Both lovely theories, and both have validity in the bigger picture of long term athlete development. But both, in my humble opinion, miss the target. And this is where you come in. You are going to either adopt one of the theories presented here (including my theory) of form your own. Whatever path you choose, I ask two things.

Firstly understand the seriousness of your interpretative decisions. You have the live, the quality of life and the livelihood (the US athlete only dropped 5 million dollars…..) of the athlete in your hands. I know you didn’t sign the Hippocratic Oath but for the sake of athletes all over the world I hope you would adopt this attitude:

First, do no harm.

Now based on a number of factors I am not optimistic that you will take the most effective path. Why am I so negative? Firstly that most of you will do what most do. And from my perspective, this conforming path gives you social comfort but leaves you under-performing on your potential, and the athletes will path the price. Secondly, most of you will lack the experience or competence to make optimal decisions. And thirdly few of you will be in a position to monitor the cause-effect relationship of training and injuries through multi-year controlled environments.

So if you are have not been too offended and are still reading, leaves me to the second request. I respect whatever path you take, and I accept that most of you will miss the target. But what you can do is every few years take stock, reflect, and change your mind. Get better at avoiding injuries in the athletes who trust you. Now this will require taking responsibility for your decisions rather than avoiding responsibility, which in sport is easy to do. It will also take humility and the willingness to let go of any dogma. So I understand this request is a large one, but I make it with optimism.

I want you to act before the duty of care concept from the legal perspective is your driving force. You are getting away with doing things today that are causes serious injury because ‘everyone’ is doing the same thing and ‘science’ has not yet ‘confirmed’ that what you are doing is causing the injuries. But one day, science will catch up and you will be held responsible for doing the things you take for granted now, like endless walking lunges, failing to stretch the athlete, and for developing the quad dominance that your current training programs are – just to name a few. One day these debilitating practices will be frowned upon. But you don’t have to wait till everyone has caught up. You can work these things out now and, for the sake of the athletes, make the changes and STOP INJURYING the athletes!

So what, in my humble opinion, has brought on the rise of incidence in ACL surgery? There are many factors, and in every case the hierarchy will be different, and this level of individual interpretation is nigh impossible in a world that struggles with accurate generalized interpretation. However, for the sake of starting your journey to serving the athletes better, I raise three of what I consider up the top end of contributing causes in most cases. I list them alphabetically to avoid any further message of which is more important or correlative.

I will also give examples in each case to demonstrate some of the influences in my conclusions.

1. The introduction of strength training and the inherent quad dominance in the program design.

Using the young athlete as a time line, based on my experience dealing with post high school elite athletes in Australia, there were few if any formal strength training programs in high schools in Australia prior to the early to mid-1990s. I suggest, and this is a hypothesis, that you could track the rise of ACL injuries in young athletes (12-24 years) along beside the rise of strength training programs in high schools and find a strong correlation.

Am I saying that strength training is bad for young athletes and should not be done? Not at all. What I am saying is that if strength training with the same imbalances as exist traditionally in adult or elite programs is applied to kids, they will suffer injuries early. And that is what is happening, I suggest.

I propose a second hypothesis – if you could track the rate at which strength training has been offered to younger and younger athletes in the high school programs, with the rise in incidence of ACL ruptures in younger and younger athletes, I suggest you would see a correlative pattern.

Now these same imbalances have been inherent in adult elite programs since I have been studying strength training for sport, since its inception around 1970 in the US.

During the 1980s I began forming a conceptual theory that I called ‘Lines of Movement’, to understand how inherent imbalances in traditional program design could quantified. I published this concept for the first time in 1998 Here is the fundamental message:

After many years I have decided that there is two family trees in lower body exercises – one where the quad dominates, and one where the hip dominates. When I say hip I mean the posterior chain muscle groups – the hip extensors; which are gluteal, hamstrings, lower back – they’re your hip extensors. And I believe this – the head of the family in the quad dominant exercises is the squat. That’s the head of the family. And there are 101 lead-up exercises to it and there’s a few on after it as well. But the core exercise for the quad dominant group is the squat. It’s the most likely used exercise in that group for the majority of people.

The hip dominant exercises – the father of the hip dominant tree is the deadlift – which when done correctly would be the most common exercise of that group. There are lead-in exercises, and there are advanced exercises from it.

So I build my family tree around the squat and I build my family tree around the deadlift. And I balance them up. In general, for every squat exercise or every quad dominant exercise I show in that week a hip dominant exercise in that week. And what do most people do in their program designs – they would do two quad dominant exercises for every hip dominant exercise. What is the most common imbalance that occurs in the lower body?

….To balance the athlete I work on a ratio of 1 to 1 of hip and quad dominant – in general. And I can assure you – most programs you’ll see are 2 to 1 – quad and hip.

That’s a concept I’m sure you’ll have never heard before because this is the first time I have spoken about it.(4)

The following is a sample list, not in any order, of the major muscle groups of the body that I published:

A sample list of muscle groups, not in any order.(5) _______________________________________________
Hip dominant (e.g. deadlift and its variations)
Quad dominant (e.g. squats and its variations)
Vertical pulling (i.e. scapula depressors e.g. chin ups)
Vertical pushing (i.e. arm abduction e.g. shoulder press)
Horizontal pulling (i.e. scapula retractors e.g. rows)
Horizontal pushing (i.e. horizontal flexion e.g. bench press)

The subsequent dilution of the origin of this concept has gone hand in hand with its failure to impact the athlete’s outcome to the extent it could have. I can only recommend you go to the source, to my original writings, summarized in the ‘Legacy’ book or more extensively in my ‘Legacy Course’ (Level1 KSI Coaching Program). I understand that those looking for opportunities to discredit my message may call ‘marketing!’ at this point in time, however those that know me better understand it’s not about the money, it’s about the athlete. And if that’s the best way at the moment to help the athlete, and I suggest it is – so be it.

I identified the imbalances of the lower body musculature and found a way to teach the risk and solution in the 1980s and taught it in the 1990s. I have since advanced my theories but the historic content would serve you really well as a base point.

2. The failure to address length and tension of the connective tissue

As a student of training trends and optimal training it has been extremely interesting to say the least to watch the trends in this area of training during the last four decades. The rise of connective tissues is undeniable, and the effort to find solutions pitiful. I suggest that the only thing my colleagues are concerned about is whether they are being trend conforming, dressed up in the behavioral term ‘cutting edge’.

Let me put it this way – more and more and younger and younger athletes are being exposed to strength training, and experiencing tissue shortening and tension increases. And the best that is bring offered is dynamic ‘stretching’ and foam rolling?

Again let me be clear – I am not saying that either is bad or of no value. What I am saying is this.

Dynamic stretching is barely stretching and does not replace the role of static stretching. And as for the dominant discouragements to the masses of the post 2000 era – that pre-training static stretching will make you weak and or increases your injures – injuries could not get much higher and the dominant value is stretching is minimized, what is done is predominantly dynamic. It’s not working! It never did! All I have to offer is four decades of professional application with an intensity and desire for optimal outcomes that few can match. Who cares about my experience? I can assure, the thousands of athletes who I have given injury free high performance careers to have.

Now foam rollers – the only reason you have heard about this option was because small equipment distributors in the US realized the profit in re-selling a piece of foam and instructed their seminar speakers to project expert (and I suggest overnight expertise) opinions on the value of rolling, to the extent that it was placed in the sequence of training sessions as a mandatory must do – and the non-trendy static stretching was left out!

Now anyone who has truly been involved in athlete preparation has been having their athletes roll on tennis balls and similar forever. But not instead of stretching and not as a replacement for massage. Rolling is great, but if you fail to keep it in context you under-perform for the athlete.

3. Fatigue

There is a point in time for even the well-conditioned athlete that the incidence of injury, especially what some mistakenly assume to be ‘impact’ injuries, increase rapidly. Here’s a third proposal or hypothesis – if you could track the level of fatigue of the athlete with those that suffer ACL rupture I suggest you would find a strong correlation. Now this hypothesis is probably the hardest one to test, I appreciate that.

I have witnessed the highest incidence of ‘impact’ injuries including ACL in the sporting teams with the highest volume training. I could name example coaches whose careers I have been monitoring for years and in some cases decades to understand the correlation between training volume, fatigue and injury incidence.

This is a risk that all coaches face at all times, requiring them to monitor their training volumes. The interpretation is made more difficult by realities such as the fatigued athlete could injure early in the game and we could say it can’t have been fatigue because it happened early in the game. Remember the residual nature of fatigue.

Conclusion

There is a growing albeit belated awareness of the high incidence of injuries such as ACL injuries in athletes, and in particular the younger athlete. Whist this is nice, and supports the strong concerns I have expressed for decades, my concern is also whether it will lead to any real intervention of this trend. My concerns are based on whether the interpretation of the cause of these injuries is accurately identified and isolated.

I provide three factors that I believe are highly correlated with the risks of ACL injuries, and provide three hypoesthesia that perhaps my more learned academic colleagues may one day investigate, to aid the thinking of the masses who wait for social proof such as this:

1. That you could track the rise of ACL injuries in young athletes (12-24 years) along beside the rise of strength training programs in high schools and find a strong correlation. 2. If you could track the rate at which strength training has been offered to younger and younger athletes in the high school programs, with the rise in incidence of ACL ruptures in younger and younger athletes, I suggest you would see a correlative pattern. 3. If you could track the level of fatigue of the athlete with those that suffer ACL rupture I suggest you would find a strong correlation.

However rather than waiting for the lagging indicators of science, for the sake of the athlete I hope that at least one coach might change their mind about how they train as the result of this article. I know the power of what is offered here, I also understand the power of conformity and dogma, and the over-riding desire of the majority to be like the majority, resulting is slow change. Thousands if not millions of athletes will get injured during this slow change, as has occurred during the last few decades.

What I would like to do is this – if you are a high school coach (physical or specific sport) and what I have said has resonated with you – and if you school would like to receive a 10 part video program I created last year titled ‘The Zero Tolerance to Injuries Video Series’, provided the school is making the purchase and it will be made accessible to all in the sports department, I would live to arrange this for you at no cost. Email my office at info@kingsports.net and ask us how you can receive this.

References
1) http://mweb.cbssports.com/ncaaf/writer/jon-solomon/25584164?utm_content=buffer0f307&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
2) http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/orthopaedic-surgeons-call-for-sports-injury-prevention/7382198
3) http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2016/05/bst_20160504_0836.mp3
4) King, I., 1998, Strength Specialization Series (DVD), Disc 3, approx. 1hr 06m 00sec in.
5) King, I., 2000, How to Teach Strength Training Exercises

Ian King

To be a student – or not  

/by

A physical preparation coach enrolled in a financial education course with my company. Initially his quiz responses were typical – acknowledging that he was in a financial position that he was not happy with and felt a strong need to change. But within a unit or two his responses began changing, showing more agitation and anger. After Unit 4 he quit, and demanded a refund.

Here is an exchange with lessons for all.

Subject: Course Refund

Hello, I purchased your course on “money”. I’d like a refund of that purchase. I do not think you should be giving any financial advice based on the content that I’ve just seen. This is just the start of my issues with this so-called course. Any means at your disposal to issue a refund is highly appreciated. If you have any questions please call me. Thanks you,
–xxxx

Now I didn’t really need this email – after reading the course quiz submissions, the refund was inevitable!

Xxxx – Ian King here. I just called as you asked but only got your voice mail After my team shared your quiz responses including

* this course fucking sucks dude you are a fraud
* This is terrible – maybe you should sell your services to wall st mr king
* The world’s best economists can’t predict with relative accuracy as to what may happen in the future so how can you

I would have refunded your money irrespective of your request below, for many reasons. We have strong desire to help anyone, such as yourself who is less than excited about doing business with us, move on to service providers more suited to their needs.

We were excited to give you your money back, so you should see that refund come through. I trust you find service providers more suited to your needs to achieve your financial goals, or any other aspect of your professional development. Thanks.
–Ian King

Now you would expect a subsequent response, but you never know, and you never know what shape it will take, and here it is:

Hi Mr. King, I just finished playing basketball, so I missed your call.

Firstly, I’d like to apologize for the vulgar feedback. As a coach in this industry I appreciate and respect your longevity and wisdom as it pertains to physical preparation. So with all due respect, I regret and I apologize for my reaction.

That said, I do stand by my assessment of the course. Here is my attempt at constructive feedback.

• The delivery of the course is laborious – I believe it’s a 6 step process to read your pdf and take unit test. Way too many steps. Also, some of the links don’t work.
• The content, well, is haphazardly pieced together and the message is one of gloom and scare, and just not very good. In a course like this I think it better to discuss the following strategies: Elements of a Business Plan. How to raise money and the elements of equity and valuation (selling a business, multiplier and ebita. Taxation strategies. I can go on…. I thought I was going to get this from the course or at least a little more insight from this angle given your industry success.
• I also believe mindset is highly individual phenomenon. I think it’s dangerous to talk about this unless you know an individual on a personal level. Remember, we are all snowflakes…generalizations just don’t work. Thank you for your professional response to my very unprofessional reaction. Best,
–xxxxx

This showed enough humility to warrant reaching out and teaching I shared the following:

xxxx – thanks for your email. I have been around long enough to know that everyone deserves a chance to be emotional in their response in the heat of things, then typically calm down afterwards. Been toe to toe with some of the biggest egos in the sporting world so seen it all, so I understand where you were coming from and you have shown a lot more positive character traits in your subsequent email than your initial responses! That didn’t do you any favors but you are big enough to realize that in hindsight so good on you.

I’m also used to pushing peoples buttons in the industry. As a leader in training concepts, I almost always get abused when I released my ’new’ theories. (not new for me because I put things through a 10 year minimum testing period before I put publish them). What I have learnt from watching reactions is those that kid and thrash the most are those who are not doing what my ’new’ training method suggests, and to save face in front of their peers and clients they typically make the most vicious attacks. Then are those who take it one step further and start teaching my methods as if they originally innovated them, hoping no-one hears about their unprofessional initial responses.

So this is the price I know I pay as a person whose life works has changed the way the world trains, even though many in the world don’t know the origins due to the phenomena described above. So I have had a lot of practice being the target of vindictiveness!

One lesson I learnt from one of my may influences was a lesson from one of the worlds best platform speakers from the end of the 20th Century and a man whose cassette (yes, cassette) sales still hold the world record – Mr Denis Waitley. Denis transitioned from being a warrior (fighter jet pilot) to being a teacher of personal development, and he says “Anger is threatened values’. From this clarity I understand that when someone’s values are threatened they get angry.

When I taught that functional strength is more appropriately developed through a sequence of bodyweight unilateral to loaded bilateral movements, I felt the anger of those who were not doing this, and whose value set were the most threatened. When I taught that speed of movement in strength training can be measured, communicated using a digit timing system, and varied, I felt the anger of those who were not doing this, and whose value set were most threatened. When I taught that static stretching should precede lifting, and that control drills should precede lifting and that abdominal exercises should be done by most people most of the time as the first exercise, I felt the anger of those who were not doing this, and whose value set were the most threatened. When I taught that balance is needed in strength training and one could use my Lines of Movement concept (horizontal push and pull, hip and quad dominant), I felt the anger of those who were not doing this, and whose value set were the most threatened.

To be clear, I teach holistically and have done from the early days (that alone will be a trend in itself one day in this industry!) and therefore I also teach on the subjects of personal development, business development, financial development and spiritual development, in addition to sets and reps.

Now there are two things that could cause an industry professional to push back on me as you did. Firstly, the heresy of daring to teach ‘outside my little box’. I get the same from sports coaches when I teach technical and tactical development – I feel the anger of the coaches who were not doing the strategies I taught, and whose value set were the most threatened. Secondly the fact that I raise points that are downright confronting to individuals and the stark reality causes a defensive reaction.

I will never forget this happening in a seminar in Boston in the late 1990s. There was one particular strength coach who started out calmly in the audience, but as I unrolled my ’new’ training concepts to the audience, the steam rose in his head! I knew he was not doing any of the things I taught, and his protégés and all whom he had positioned to see him as the local ‘guru’ were in the room. It was not going to end well! He couldn’t wait to the of the day to change his ways so he did what most do when fear creates the desire to attack. He gathered his followers at the mid-morning break, convinced them the content was terrible, the delivery was terrible, and the only possible salvation was for them all to leave right then and there. They did, but to this day I am sure he knows that the only salvation was of his ego. I could have overlooked this act, as I did with yours, but his subsequent act of creating a publishing and seminar stream based on the very work he walked out on, without a single measure of the source, placed him as a lessor man than you.

You see you ‘fessed up and apologized. He just kept acting without integrity. Now where is the lesson in this? I share this with you for a number of reasons, including with the intent to help you understand that the most successfully self-promoted gurus in this industry are not the role models that I would endorse, yet they succeed in way-laying well meaning industry professionals looking for direction. As a result too many in this industry are never empowered to fulfill their own potential.

I genuinely feel for the majority misguided individual in this industry, whose role models leave them with an impossible to resolve scarcity mentality affecting all aspects of the live and family. Money is one example of this. The ego, as a colleague of mine by the name of Michael Callejas likes to say (see, it’s not difficult to give credit!) – is not your amigo!

Before I do allow me to comment on your statement:

That said, I do stand by my assessment of the course.

You have found rational reasons to support an emotional decision. That’s okay, but you don’t have to. You can let go of being right and move forward. I don’t mind too much about right and wrong. There’s a great saying – you can be right or rich. So you won’t see too much (hopefully none!) dogma in the following because I happy for anyone to be right, because my focus is elsewhere!

Now if you are still reading, I will also take time to respond to your effort of providing feedback.

1. The delivery of the course is laborious. Yes, that is right. And for the most part, that is my intention. You, had you read deeper into the course, would have learnt about my concerns about the information collecting nature of this industry. When I first released the Level 1 KSI Course as it now is, I was shattered that my life work was for the most part going to form a badge of honor – on the library shelf! I could see that most were just printing off the units and not bothering to read it. I made a decision that even if it costs me money – and it does, because as you have done, the current crop of industry professional want to be wowed with bullshit, and given a whole heap of ‘information’. I refuse to be part of that, to endorse this.

So I make you work for it. If you are not committed enough to take a few steps, you don’t deserve to get the next unit. This provides a pre-qualification filter to sort out who deserves my information, who will use it in the manner intended I.e. Apply it in a practical real world sense, where the real learning is taking place; and who is going to treat it as if most sellers do – whose primary intent is to wow you will flashy made up shit and make it as easy as possible for you to be motivated to give them your money.

So the laborious part is not going to change, although we are always looking at ways of smoothing the action steps, so this will get better with time.

Now another reason I don’t like to just ‘give’ the information but rather pre-qualify the user, is to weed out those who have the post 2000 value promoted by a certain little group who self-servingly promote its okay to lie, cheat and steal – who have no hesitation in changing the copyright symbol to their own and change the front cover! Now of course I would never be so gross as to use those words, but you get the message!

2. The links don’t work: Now let’s talk about the links not working. They actually work – they just don’t work on all computers all the time. Clearing the cache helps, but I take responsibility for this as much as I can, and we are looking to refine this over time.

3. The content, well, is haphazardly pieced together: Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But I can’t say yet whether the sequence or content will change – I would rather allow time in the hands of the readers who complete the course to help guide this.

I’ve only been a student of this subject with intensity for about 25 years so I am a bit green, and I will get better. I published my first book on financial education in 1999, but that might have been haphazard in your eyes also, and again I would say – maybe it is and maybe it isn’t.

4. The message is one of gloom and scare: I appreciate this concern and from memory I not only apologized for this perception but stressed that (you might have quit the course before you got to this) that it’s bad news for those who refuse to change, take action; and good news for those that are willing to face up to it, learn new habits of the mind and habits of the body. The money is not leaving the market – its just changing hands.

But yes, I can see why the majority would think what I focused on was doom and gloom. I maintain that what I have done is my best to forewarn and prepare my industry colleagues for a changing world, irrespective of whether we experience a major economic downturn during 2016 or 2017.

Perhaps you and I do not share the same views on the world – I see a world where there are too many people living one economic mishap away from economic ruin. I see a world where to many have no assets, no savings and no hope of supporting themselves in retirement. I see a world where too many children’s parents compromise on the health and time spend with them due to their economic circumstances. I think that gloomy. What I seek to do is to give people education as a lifeline to get out of these circumstances. Of course not everyone wants it. Some find id offensive, or not good enough in delivery, or haphazard or any other reason to stop the train of possible change and stay where they are.

5. You have better ideas on appropriate content: I read what you said were better ideas and content. Now let me do this as gently and as humbly as I can ‘Dude (now I don’t normally talk like that but I am using your words!) – are you the teacher or the student?!’

One of the greatest challenges in learning is being willing to empty your cup, be the student, put on the white belt.

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
—Stephen Hawking

Let’s be really brutally honest and with no disrespect, but calling a spade a spade because life’s really do depend on this – are you really in a position, based on your financial position, to be the teacher? Now I don’t make that decision. You do. It would appear you have already done so, as you fired me as your teacher.

In summary to this point, and with as much care and respect as I can muster, I am going to pass on your pointers on content. There’s a bigger lesson for you in this, but lessons are taken by students, not determined by teachers.

5. What you thought you were going to get from this course: I get this. From my double major in sociology I understand that the conditions for a revolt are set when the expectations and reality don’t meet. Having said that let me get out of theory mode and into real world talk. I don’t give you want you want, I give you what you need. If you knew, really knew what you needed, you would not be where you are today. So get over this discrepancy between what you expected and what I gave you, or stay where you are.

In the early 1990s I was just like you in this regard. I sat in a multiple thousand-dollar seminar (not a $47 one like you spat the dummy about) and expected to get days of sales and marketing. So when it was obvious that I wasn’t going to get that, rather days of personal development, I had to make a decision. Spit the dummy, demand a refund, and go home bitching and whining about the rip-off fraud that guy was. Or to say to myself – okay Ian, you tried it your way and it didn’t work. So maybe you will be better off shutting up, emptying your cup and being a student. And that, ‘dude’, was one of the great turning points in my life. So I know where you are coming from. I just can’t be on your cheer squad.

6. It’s dangerous to talk about mindset in general terms as its dangerous: Now xxxx, I think you may be scraping the barrel now but I’ll honor it as I have done the above.

Firstly, is it better to individual rather than to provide group training? Of course it is. But no-one does it. We are in an industry where more people sell group training than individualized programs!

Now on the subject of individualization. Its strange getting a lecture on this because I have been one of the strongest advocates on this subject over the last few decades. In fact one of my greatest criticisms of the industry is that the competence to individualize training is so low, it would barely move the arrow on a meter!

I’ve written often about how much angst I experience providing a generic program for what was called T-mag back in 1999. Anyone who was around then would recall the ‘Limping Program’ you know, the one where I recommended unique bodyweight exercises be integrated into conventional strength programs, and everyone thought I was a lunatic – until it became apparently popular and let to many books on the subject written by the leader of the Boston seminar walkout.

Now I went through the same pain writing programs for my four book sequel Get Buffed! As well as the Book of Muscle. Now in hindsight, did I do the wrong thing? Did I ‘damage’ anyone? Or did I help more people than hinder by this act of generalization?

xxxx you know the answer. And you probably know you are using the time-tested technique of false fear attached to an at may stop people doing stuff….Like when I was a kid and they said if you go swimming you will get a cramp and drown…but I didn’t…and then when I was a teenager they said if you do ’that’ you will go blind….and I still can see….and then in the 1990s they said if you massage someone without having a certain costly certification you will damage peoples nerves…but I didn’t….and then post 2000 the world was told that if they statically stretched they would injure and when that scare mongering wore out it was switched to ‘if you static stretch’ you will go weak…

I guess you can see what I really think about your last point!

Now for a belated conclusion. As a student, I have learnt I can shoot the messenger, or I can study the message. The more you do of one, the less you do of the other.

Yes, I responded with more than you expected, but I confess is as much for anyone who will read this as it is for you, and I don’t determine who becomes the student. I can give student tips, like leave your ego at the door, put on white belt, empty your cup, don’t preach to the teacher until you have solid evidence that you can do better….and so on. But I don’t determine who starts the journey of the student, nor do I pick who stays the path and who quits. You know what I am saying first hand!

Ian King Want to do this course? http://bit.ly/moneyandtheppcoach-prequalify

Ian King

You don’t want to be the best you can be  

/by

You want to be just like everyone else

I am sure if a survey was taken of physical preparation coaches the majority would say there goal was to be the best they can be. From my perspective, I suggest that is not the dominant focus. I suggest that the desire to be like everyone else is far greater than the desire to be the best one can be. And I suggest that the price paid for this default is lost opportunities for both the professional and the client.

During the 1970s very few people participated in the exercise know as the squat, or double knee bend. The belief was squats were bad for your knees. Did the majority come to that conclusion based on their personal experiences, or did they simply accept the dominant beliefs and habits?

During the 1980s the majority of mixed energy sports athletes participated in a higher volume aerobic training block in their General Preparatory Phase. The belief was that it was neither safe or optimal to expose the athlete to other training modalities without first gaining a level of aerobic fitness. Did the majority come to that conclusion based on their personal experiences, or did they simply accept the dominant beliefs and habits?

During the 1990s the majority of physical preparation coaches included Swiss ball exercise in their program design. The belief was that performing an exercise, any – actually vertically all – exercises. This was based on the dogma that the additional balance challenges produced a superior training effect, and that this was definitely going to transfer to all sport and life activities. Did the majority come to that conclusion based on their personal experiences, or did they simply accept the dominant beliefs and habits?

During the 2000s the majority of physical preparation coaches selected almost exclusively from the so-called ‘functional exercises’ (although I am not really sure what that is) in their program design. To do any exercise sitting on a bench or lying down was heretical. This was based on the belief that standing and multi-planar movements were superior in their training effect for all people at all times, and would definitely provide a superior transfer to sport and life. Did the majority come to that conclusion based on their personal experiences, or did they simply accept the dominant beliefs and habits?

During the 2010s the majority of sports coaches and physical preparation coaches refuse to use static stretching, replacing what little stretching time is dedicated to stretching with ‘dynamic’ stretches. This is based on the belief that static stretching makes you weak and leads to injury and dynamic stretching is safer, more functional and effective. Did the majority come to that conclusion based on their personal experiences, or did they simply accept the dominant beliefs and habits?

The one question I asked throughout the above is – Did the majority come to that conclusion based on their personal experiences, or did they simply accept the dominant beliefs and habits? I suggest they did not come to these conclusions based on any form of personal experience. I also suggest that they didn’t even think. They just accepted and did.

So what would I need to see to believe that a physical preparation coach was making an attempt to be the best they can be? The most important criteria I am looking for is evidence of thinking. That the key questions have been asked, including but not limited to;

• What is the best way to train?
• What can I do to fulfill my potential as a coach?
• What can I do to fulfill the potential of my client/athlete?

Now call me simplistic, but I am skeptical as to whether the majority has applied this approach. Here are a few considerations.

Let’s take squats for examples. Prior to about 1990, when a slew of ‘research’ was published extolling the benefits of stretching, did the did the majority of physical preparation coaches have collective personal experiences that squatting was bad and then collectively and coincidentally post 1990 have personal experiences to the contrary?

Let’s take the Swiss ball for example. Prior to about 1990 few knew the word Swiss ball and exercises upon it. Up until this time did the did the majority of physical preparation coaches have collective personal experiences that Swiss balls and exercises on Swiss balls were useless and then collectively and coincidentally post 1990 have personal experiences to the contrary?

Let’s take stretching for example. Prior to about 1995 it was okay to statically stretch, and commonly done. Post 1995 it wasn’t. Now did the majority of physical preparation coaches have collective experiences prior to 1995 that static stretching was the most effective way to stretch, and then post 1995 all reach personal conclusions to the contrary? I suggest not. Now I respect that for many of you my proposition is flawed as I place a premium on thinking, at a time in the world and in our industry where the dominant belief that what you think is irrelevant – just read the research and see if ‘research supports it’. This is essentially not only the antithesis of thinking, I also suggest that this don’t think just believe in the research mentality is actually contrary to the intent of the origin of science.

For me objectivity is the key.

Scientific objectivity is a characteristic of scientific claims, methods and results. It expresses the idea that the claims, methods and results of science are not, or should not be influenced by particular perspectives, value commitments, community bias or personal interests, to name a few relevant factors.

And even though science claims this I don’t believe it is always the case.

Science in theory is intended to provide objective analysis. I believe this way has been lost in many cases, where the research conclusions are influenced by the researcher, who in turn may be influenced by the provider of the funding.

For all the lip service we pay to science, everyone knows that it is commerce that runs the show. As the Spanish proverb goes, ‘He who gives the bread lays down the law’. Science today typically serves the large corporate interests that fund it. In a world conceived by the financial and corporate leadership who effectively rule it, the purpose of the human being is to contribute to the economy as an increasingly efficient unit of production and as an increasingly efficient unit of consumption. The financial and corporate elite establish effective social policy, and commercially funded science gives them the technological wherewithal to execute it. –Laurence G. Boldt, 1999

I believe you can be more objective than certain modern ‘scientific’ conclusions:

Now I admit it’s not easy being an objective thinker. Throughout history thinkers have been subject to a variety of suppressions and restrictions by authorities.

Take Roger Bacon (c. 1219/20 – c. 1292) for example, the 13th Century English philosopher. He is sometimes credited (mainly since the 19th century) as one of the earliest European advocates of the modern scientific method inspired by Aristotle

• After 1260, Bacon’s activities were restricted by a statute prohibiting the friars of his order from publishing books or pamphlets without prior approval. • The Condemnations of 1277 banned the teaching of certain philosophical doctrines, including deterministic astrology. Some time within the next two years, Bacon was apparently imprisoned or placed under house arrest. –https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Bacon

Here are some of the thinking that Bacon and others were ‘not allowed to engage in’ at various times in the 13th Century:

The banned propositions included:

• “That there is numerically one and the same intellect for all humans”.
• “That the soul separated [from the body] by death cannot suffer from bodily fire”.
• “That God cannot grant immortality and incorruption to a mortal and corruptible thing”.
• “That God does not know singulars” (i.e., individual objects or creatures).
• “That God does not know things other than Himself”.
• “That human acts are not ruled by the providence of God”.
• “That the world is eternal”.
• “That there was never a first human”.
–https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condemnations_of_1210–1277

History is littered with examples of suppression of freedom of thinking. Now if you are still reading this article, and if you resonate with the belief that you should reach your own, objective conclusions, then here is one phenomenal role model to guide and inspire you. Buckminster-Fuller, considered one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th Century, wrote:

I jettisoned all I had ever been taught to believe and proceeded thereafter to reason and act only on the basis of direct personal experience … Exploring, experiencing, feeling, and – to the best of my ability – acting strictly and only on my individual intuition, I became impelled to write this book… –Buckminster-Fuller, referring to his book ‘Critical Path’, 1981.

I am not alone in my encouragement to you to temper your compliance with the dominant ‘scientific’ theories:

I think that in modern Western society, there seems to be a powerful cultural conditioning that is based on science. But in some instances, the basic premises and parameters set up by Western science can limit your ability to deal with certain realities. For instance, you have the constraints of the idea that everything can be explained within the framework of a single lifetime, and you combine this with the notion that everything can and must be explained and accounted for. But when you encounter phenomena that you cannot account for, then there’s kind of a tension created; it’s almost a feeling of agony. –Howard C. Culter and the Dalai Lama, 1998

Again I share I am not seeking to be disrespectful of science as it currently is.

Research is nice and I’m definitely not critical at all of the contribution of academics. But my decision to train a certain way is not based on the latest research. It’s based on the conclusions I’ve reached on cause and effect relationships in the real world. People can become too infatuated with the concept of science.

For me, success in sport is about winning. Athletes aren’t going to get offended if I don’t comply with the latest research. They just want to win. So the research is nice, but it’s always going to be limited. We’re not dealing with a college age volunteer in a six week program; we’re dealing with a human being that’s been working for fifteen to twenty years to take his body beyond where it’s gone before. –Shugart, C., 2000, Meet the press: Coach of Coaches – An interview with Ian King, t-mag.com 29 Friday 2000

I also acknowledge that the easiest thing to do is to conform. However I encourage you to reflect on this perspective on conformity:

The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity. –Rollo May

I have been encouraging you to resist the pressures of conformity for:

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 (book), p. 17

It is rewarding to see individuals chose to be objective, to trial training methods and reach their own conclusions, even if they are contrary to the dominant beliefs:

“…from young, I was led to believe that an individual’s level of flexibility is determined by genetics. As I grew older I got stiffer and when I started my formal education, I was educated that flexibility is not a vital determining factor in sports and that dynamic stretches were more than sufficient to both warm-up the joint and muscles, as well as to improve flexibility.

To be honest, with all the research papers and articles being put through my mind at that time, it did seem logical for a naive mind that was easily convinced. However, I am glad that I was shown the art of stretching…I have never experienced such levels of flexibilities in my life and I’m thankful that I chose to open my mind to a concept that was challenged by the origins of my knowledge in this field. I spend close to half or on some days, more than half of my time stretching my frontal muscle groups & performing tension releasing work with my ‘poor man’s masseur’ as it has significantly improved my overall health. Stretching will also and always be a main training tool/stapler in the programs that I design, due to it’s massive benefits that I have attained and am still experiencing.” -Tze, KSI L1 Student Coach

In essence I am suggesting that if you do what everyone else is doing, you are not only failing to fulfill your potential, you are failing to fulfill the potential of your client:

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, p. 30

Give you a hint – if what I teach is what the majority do, I would be very concerned. I want to do what few do, to get a competitive advantage. –King, I., 2003, Ask the Master, (book) p. 32

Conclusion

I am going to be straight – if you find yourself doing what the majority are doing, and your goal is to be the best you can be – you should be very concerned. I see this as evidence that you are not thinking for yourself, rather that you are conforming.

Now this is not bad or good from one perspective – even Master Sifu in the movie Kung Fu Panda will tell you there is not such thing as good or bad! If you have no desire to fulfill your potential, if your personality is such that you would prefer to conform, then keep going. The world needs all kinds, and the statistical reality has a pattern of talking about the 90-95% that just want to be average, the same as everyone else.

But if you are seeking to be the best you can be, to give you clients the best opportunity to be the best they can be – to be in the 5 to 10% of high achievers – then you need to stop seeking to be like everyone else and think for yourself!

Ian King

Show me your mentor and I will predict your future  

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When we start out in the industry its unlikely we fully appreciate the impact of those who we model. The late Stephen Covey, the author of the best-selling book ‘Seven Habit’s of Highly Successful People, spoke of making sure that was the building you want to climb before leaning your ladder up against it.

I have sat and heard the sadness of too many who some ten plus years later have confided or inferred their regrets of how they have spent their time, money and emotions during key phases of their career.

When a coach is new and young and starry eyed it’s understandable they may be attracted to the newest, latest or loudest or shiniest object. It understandable that their perceptions are shaped by the dominant industry trends when they arrive at the scene.

However no matter how understandable this is, life is too short to spend pursing empty paths. For the last few decades I have suggested that young coaches check out the life behind the marketed images of individuals before seeking to model them.

Everyone has different interests and goals, and my hope is that some decades into your time in this industry you can look back with pride and satisfaction about how you choose to invest your time, money and energy.

And remember – the mentor you choose may be an excellent predictor of your future. So choose with wisdom.

Ian King

The illusion of knowledge  

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Imagine if you came upon someone with a lifetime of experience supported by an incredible success in helping people fulfil their potential. After a period of communication they offered guidance based on this experience. What would you do?

I can tell you what most do. About 90% plus of the population will seek to analyze the ‘information’ based on their existing paradigms.

Let me say this as gently as I can – if you knew the answers now you would be have all the success you seek. And in reality, you don’t know the answers and you would benefit from letting go of the ‘information’ you have to filter the guidance from those who you benefit from following and modeling.

Even when I place a disclaimer along the lines of ‘I will only give you my time and experience if you demonstrate your willingness to be a student and take action’, the point is often missed.

Recently, following a complimentary profession of low level professional guidance via private messaging, I made the following offer:

“…yes, life changes and you need to adapt. You also need to get more serious about things like xxxx and xxxx for the xxxx and xxxx. the latter of which I have pretty clear guidelines for but only for those who will act on my advice, not for those who want opinions…”

To which ultimately the response was:

“Thank you Ian…I would like, of course, before committing ….to know what these xxxx are, by whom are they produced, and to find out more about their production and, consequently, their respective effects/mode of action…I am sure you can appreciate my reticence and my need to find out more about xxxx, for the very same reasons.

xxxx (and ever more so, given their isolative nature) and xxxx potential accentuation effects should be carefully considered, especially their effects on overall balance when used concomitantly, so I would certainly like more info before going down that route…’

This is a lost opportunity. The guidance will not be forthcoming because the student was not ready. I would not work professionally with this perspective and therefore would not do this in a complimentary sense either.

Here’s a quote that offers guidance on this point worth reflecting on:

“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance – it is the illusion of knowledge.”–Daniel J. Boorstin

Ian King

Questions are the answer  

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I share the following exchange as a great example of and learning moment in the concept that questions are the answers.

Hello, I was curious about your products available and had some questions

1. Does your Legacy book contain the same content as your Legacy course (minus the audio and video)?

2. If I pay for and begin the legacy course, does this course include/cover content from your other books/audio/DVDs products or is it all separate ‘exclusive info’ and these all need to be purchased separate or does the course cover it all. For example, in the legacy course do you cover the concepts talked about in the endurance, flexibility, strength training, speed specialization DVDs, periodization and integration series, recovery methods series, bar bells and bull shit, foundations of physical prep etc.? If not at what point, if at all, is any of this covered throughout different level of courses, level 2? I ask because everything is pretty vague in description and makes it confusing on your site. as well I’m trying to figure out if doing the legacy course is the wrong way to go in that it just covers the concepts in general, and the better route is to purchase some DVDs/books etc.

3. I can’t find much if any info on what level 2 and up covers.

4. As well I see you have audio/DVD/books with the same titles. Does this cover the same content just in different formats? For example there is barbell and bullshit DVD, audio, and book. Do they cover the same info but are just in different formats??

Sorry for all the questions but i enjoy your work and would like to learn more but trying to figure out what exactly i am purchasing is a little confusing to me. –Brendan

Brendan – great to hear from you. And great questions! Here are sone answers:

Q1. Does your Legacy book contain the same content as your Legacy course?

A1 The Legacy books is a condensed version of the course. For example the course has 1,500 pages of text – the book as 200 or so. So the theme is the same, but he content depth is very different. This is the audio an video, also as as you are aware.

Q2. Does this course include/cover content from your other books/audio/DVDs products or is it all separate ‘exclusive info’ and these all need to be purchased separate or does the course cover it all.

A2. The Legacy course is a synthesis of my original concepts so you should see some overlap with most of my publications, as my works rely on my original works, not imitations or trends.

Can one course cover it all? I hope not. If I could condense my 35 years of experiences totally into one course I would be concerned about the brevity of the content I can share. So whether you see it as a positive or a negative, I have chosen to spread the KSI coaching course over 7 levels that typically takes 5-10 years to complete. And part of this curriculum or educational journey is studying from existing artifacts.

So I guess in summary, no, this is not a ‘one course covers it all’ As I seek to record my life works, I hope that my life has amounted to more than the content for one course.

I appreciate that few have the experiences I have had in coaching, or the gift to synthesize and innovate, so I understand it may be challenging to understand how my works are so different. I can only say that perhaps the few that truly appreciate the possibilities of this are those who have been through the journey.

To give further guidance, I believe that all professional should do the KSI courses first, and study the various artifacts as the stages of the course when prompted. When a person picks and choses which artifact and when this lacks structure and guidance, and in addition, we have taken a number of the artifacts (e.g. Specialization series) off the market in that they cannot be purchased until a certain stage of the KSI coaching journey.

Q3. I can’t find much if any info on what level 2 and up covers.

A3. Yes, we keep our content low key for a number of reasons. Firstly, I am over being copied by fitness industry marketers who fraudulently represent themselves as the author of my works and imitate my educational offerings from the name to the method of structuring delivery.

Secondly, I take the philosophy that when the student Is ready the teacher will appear, and until L1 in completed, L2 is a mute point. I appreciate that my approach costs signups and income, but that is not my focus. My focus is doing the best, doing the right thing by people, not having the most people in my courses. So giving up money and numbers is not an issue for me. I just myself on how my coaching changes lives, not on the number of friends on my Facebook page or the turnover of my business or any other popularity marker.

Q. 4. As well I see you have audio/DVD/books with the same titles. Does this cover the same content just in different formats?

Q4. Yes, typically it does

Conclusion

I trust my answers have gone towards answering your questions. Never apologize for asking questions. Questions are the answer, and when there is no questions there are no answers. For example many go to seminars and sit there like stunned mullets because they are so used to the speaker feeling obliged to impress them with an over-dose of ‘information’. I would prefer to say little, and if there are no questions the student is not ready, and I will go home and ride my John Deere tractor or train myself, something more stimulating than role playing as an expert to information collectors whose ability to really impact peoples life’s and change the world is missing because they have modeled perception creators, not true value adders.

I keep things low key and slightly vague to weed out those who do things because they are marketed sharply to from those who are on a genuine path of learning and self-fulfillment. You have shown early positive signs of being a student and now taking action in the first step.

Your questions are also a gift to use as we reflect on the impact of our communication through our web content on you and learn from this. It helps shape our direction, so thank you.

Ian King