or improved body function.
Athletic Performance training typically focuses upon developing your speed, power, and strength. To achieve this goal, you must establish good muscle endurance, good motor control, and superb neuromuscular responses. This is very different from body-building which focuses primarily on increasing the size and bulk of your muscles.
Exercise programs that focus only on increasing muscle size by isolating specific muscles (weight training with machines) often result in muscular imbalances, soft tissue injuries, and an overall decrease in performance. This is one of the reasons we do not recommend the use of exercise machines (other than cable machines) in any of our routines.
Look for athletic training programs that integrate elements of strength, endurance, speed, and power. These are the ones that will be most helpful in increasing your performance.
Principle 2: Good Tissue Quality = Good Performance
In sports performance, the quality of your soft tissue is a key element that cannot be ignored. When you improve the quality of your tissue (no restrictions, adhesions, or tightness) then you will reap the rewards of faster recovery, increased speed, improved range of motion, more strength, reduced injuries, and improved performance.
As we discussed in Principle 2: Develop your Power - page 4, your muscles are like rubber bands. When there are no knots (restrictions) in them you can easily store and release your energy. This directly translates into improved performance. This is why soft tissue techniques such as Active Release Techniques have helped take Olympic athletes to gold medal status. These types of techniques improve the overall quality of your soft tissues.
Bottom line: When you ignore the quality and state of your soft tissues, then you are taking the path of diminished performance! So, if you have restrictions and tight spots that are not resolved by exercising, then take the time to work these restrictions out by using our myofascial techniques (foam rollers, tennis balls, self-massage) or see a skilled soft tissue practitioner for help in restoring your soft tissue quality. See Alternative Therapies to Explore - page 195 for more information.
Principle 3: Some Muscle Pain is Okay
With performance training, it is often necessary to work through your muscle pain.
I am often asked the question, “How do I know the difference between acceptable muscle pain and injury pain?”
Muscle pain from exercising will usually diminish with time, but pain from an injury will not. I tell my patients that they should never work an area if they feel constant pain even when they are not exercising.
Pain from an injury is usually quite distinctive with sharp, stabbing sensations – or much more intense than normal muscle pain. It is also common to have injury- related pain increase with physical activity.
If you are injured, you need to return to a rehabilitative approach in your exercise program (for the affected structure). Working through injury-related pain is a sure way of continuing the injury or creating even more severe problems.
Principle 4: Develop Your Aerobic Zone Before Working on Your Anaerobic Zone
Anaerobic training (where your tissues are working with reduced oxygen levels) is an essential aspect of performance training. However, as we mentioned earlier, you must first establish a good aerobic base before you can even consider beginning your anaerobic training.
Athletes who fail to train their aerobic base to a sufficient level before embarking on anaerobic training (intervals) can find themselves dealing with soft tissue injuries, diminished energy, slow healing, and even decreased performance levels. See Working within your Aerobic Zone - page 44 for more details about aerobic training.
The anaerobic or lactate system is very different from your aerobic system since it only operates for 5 seconds to about 2 minutes. This anaerobic system is very efficient at producing power, but it also produces a considerable amount of waste byproducts.
Do not start anaerobic training until you have established and maintained your aerobic base for several months. Once you start anaerobic training, your Lactate Threshold is established as you move back and forth between your aerobic and anaerobic systems. Your goal is to increase your anaerobic capacity (Lactate Threshold) since this will allow you to train for longer periods of time (within your aerobic zone), at faster speeds, and with greater intensity. A higher Lactate Threshold will also allow you to recover faster from your workouts.
Comparing the Benefits of Aerobic and Anaerobic Training
Cardiovascular warm-ups are all about increasing your circulatory function and increasing your energy production. Building up your aerobic base makes you heal faster, perform better, and even turns back your biological clock! Aerobic exercise does this by:
Increasing the density of capillaries in your muscles.
Increasing the mitochondrial function of your cells
Serious anaerobic training should only be taken up after you have built a good aerobic base. Anaerobic training causes your body to increase its production of Human Growth Hormone, which brings a whole host of health benefits to your body.
Involving Your Core
It doesn’t matter what type of exercise you are performing; all exercises require good posture and solid support from your core. Your core is the foundation and source of all your movements, providing a stable base for all arm, leg, and neck motions. Your ability to maintain good posture is greatly dependent upon your core stability!
If you have a stable, balanced, elastic core, then you can easily transfer energy from the centre of your body to all your extremities! This process of first storing energy, and then releasing it, is very similar to how a spring mechanism works. A compressed spring contains stored energy. When the spring releases, the stored energy is released to allow the spring to expand. The muscles of your core act like a spring, compressing or tightening to store energy, and expanding to release the stored energy for use in movement!
Having the ability to store and release energy from your core is a fundamental aspect of injury resolution and athletic performance. It does not matter how fit you currently are, what your age is, or what your current health status is...you can always improve the quality of your core.
If you do not have a strong core, you rob yourself of much needed power and energy, and make yourself more susceptible to injuries.
Bracing Your Core
Almost all of our exercises require you to activate, brace, and otherwise involve your core! One of the key ways that all exercises can be converted into core exercises is through the process of bracing. I first learned about this process from Dr. Stuart McGill, Department Chair of the Spine Biomechanics Laboratory at the University of Waterloo.
Bracing refers to the process of “contracting all the muscles in the