This may be the simplest step yet something that seems to be missing from the coaching assessment, I find out what they’ve already done. The simple question of “what have you already done” unlocks golden nuggets, it gives me insights to what has and has not worked. Athletes are coming to see me because what they’ve been doing hasn’t delivered the results they’re looking for, so I don’t want to waste their time doing more of the same!

Next I assess their movement by looking at how efficiently they move as well as their capacity to sustain efficient movement patterns. This assessment looks at their movements both in a weight room setting as well as how they move in their sport. By looking at both environments I’m often able to see things that have previously been overlooked or have been left untouched. This, coupled with step 1 allows me to start making decisions on where to get started.

Pretty simply I now want to get the athlete working and see what delivers changes. Step 1 and 2 have created a list of things to work on, now we go down the list and see what is the most effective for the athlete in front of me. If something that I believe should work, I’m not going to let me ego get in the way of my athletes progress, but I will go back to the drawing board and see what we’ve missed.

Bodies are extremely adaptable, so if we are not seeing positive changes relatively fast (in session or within 2-weeks) we are generally going to move on to the next item. This doesn’t mean people are magically healed in a session or a couple of weeks (sometimes they are), but we should be able to tell if things are moving in the right direction in a short time frame.

I expect to see positive results within a couple weeks if we are doing the right things, even with the most stubborn tendons which take longer to adapt than muscles.

Once we find the things that work for the individual, we dive deep into making movement cost less. Every time we move we take out money from our “bodies bank”. If our bodies bank account has $1000 in it, we want to make each movement cost only a few cents so that the account drains slowly. If the account nears or reaches zero, overuse or non-contact injuries, or performance decreases tend to happen.

We are not chasing “perfect” movement, but we are chasing more efficient movements that cost less!

Now we don’t just make movement cost less, if this were the case our bank account would always be slowly draining and therefore eventually run out. We simultaneously work on developing greater capacities so athletes can withstand more stress, load, volume and intensity without breaking down.

Training the capacity is like making deposits into the “body’s bank account”. An athlete may go from $1000 to $10,000 and so on, moving them further away from bankruptcy (injuries, poor performance, etc.).
**Thank you Austin Einhorn for this metaphor!**

Lastly, I bridge the worlds of “strength training” and “sport coaching” to allow an athletes newly developed efficient patterns in the weight room, show up on the court or field.

I don’t care if an athlete is the strongest or the best mover in the weight room if they’re not seeing the results they want to see as they play their sport!

Playing time, health, stats, performance metrics or other measurables should improve with the work we do in the weight room. And it’s not something we leave up to chance, we check in on these things and make sure the gap between the weight room and their sport is bridged!