If you are an athlete or sportsperson - from the beginner to the elite - and are serious about improving your functional strength and power, then you need to read this article.
Functional strength and power is your ability to move things (including yourself) fast - both in your sport and in your day-to-day life.
If you're current training program is machine and fixed object orientated, then not only are you NOT improving your athletic abilities, you're probably losing strength and power - along with agility, co-ordination, speed, and flexibility.
Want to know the solution?
You need to forget about 'traditional' gym training. By traditional, I mean body-building. Remember that most gym training was born out of the 'Arnie' era. Now nothing against the big man, but unless you're a body-builder you really shouldn't be training like one. In fact, even Arie knew the value of using his own body weight and free weights to sculpt and build his physique.
Despite this, our 'idea' of how to train still seems to be stuck in the 80's and in machine-based exercise.
Well, we're in 2007 now and for some reason, when I look around the gym I still see the majority of people, both male and female, training like bodybuilder's.
This is partly because many people simply don't know where to start and so they copy the majority are up to. In some ways, this does make sense, as it's better to do something 'easy' like sit on a machine, then risk hurting yourself if you don't know what you're doing, or don't have someone there to guide you.
But the main reason that people continue to use machines, even when they've been in the gym along while, is that they're easy. Mindless. You could do machine weights in your sleep, couldn't you? NO thinking required. It doesn't take much thought to stick a pin in a rack, sit down and start pushing something forward and back or up and down. God forbid you should ever try a different direction, like - oh, I don't know - the way your muscle fibres run! Hell, some of these machines even give you a seatbelt. After all, why would you want to use your own core when you can set up a fake one?
Long story short: machines train the big muscles, the beach muscles, and they even do this to only a limited extent. Your body is designed to work with teams of muscles both big and small operating alongside each other.
As any kind of athlete - novice to elite - in order to improve speed and power, you absolutely must develop the ability to engage your stabilising muscles (often these forgotten muscles generate the most power), and on top of this you need co-ordination, stability and agility in order to really push to the max in your sport. Machines just ain't gonna provide that for you!
Here's what you need to do instead.
Start with what I call the 'foundation movement patterns', and choose an exercise that is a basic definition of each. There are seven foundation movement patterns, on which every exercise you do is built. Out of these seven movements you can literally create thousands of exercises and routines to develop power and speed. I've listed them here, with an idea of some exercises for each.
Movement - Exercise - Exercise
Squat Squat Overhead squat
Lunge Lunge Step-up
Push Cable push Chest press on ball
Pull Cable pull Renegade row
Bend Deadlift Barbell snatch
Twist Russian twist on ball Wood Chop
Gait Run Sprint
I'm guessing you may be familiar with some of these exercises, and a little unsure about a couple of them. I won't be going into exercise descriptions in this article, but feel free to email me at the address below if you'd like to ask about any of the above.
Think about this though: if you are an athlete who is at all serious about training for speed and power, you should not only be familiar with, but also fairly adept at, all of the above movements and exercises.
If you're neglecting any of the above foundation patterns, you're only training to a limited ability. Here's some more food for thought: most machines cover only pushing, pulling and (maybe) squatting. I guess if you add a treadmill in, you've got gait. So if you train with machines, you're training around half of your body's needs. Add in the fact that machines allow you to move in only one direction, when your body is designed to go in 3 main directions and a host of 'in betweens', and you're pretty much training to around 17 or 18% of your ability.
How would you like to improve your speed and power by around 80%?
But wait, there's more!
Learning to train without machines will not only enhance speed and power dramatically, but will also improve your strength, agility, stability, co-ordination. PLUS (yes, there's still more!), it will trim and tone your body pretty damn quickly.
Now that you have an idea of where to start, it's time for the hard work to begin.
If you're not used to training in this way, it's advisable to find a trainer to help you out.
How do you find the best trainer? Watch them with their clients, or training themselves, and you'll get a pretty fair idea of whether they can help you out. You can also go for a trainer with appropriate qualifications, such as CHEK qualifications (http://www.chekinstitute.com to find a practitioner in your area).
If you've already tried some of these exercises before, here's a few pointers to start increasing power and strength today:
o Drop the weight back and work on form.
o Build the foundation first. Learn to control all movement from your centre.
Learn how to activate your core in a variety of movement's. To activate your core, get back to basics. Start by lying on your back, knees bent and feet flat, and practice breathing through your nose, then drawing your belly button toward your spine on the outward breath. This is a very simplified explanation of how to activate your core - for more detail, consult a good Personal Trainer.
o Always breathe through your nose. This allows you to maintain 'intra-abdominal pressure', giving you greater power from your center, and also contributes to ideal posture.
As you've gathered, this is a pretty complex topic, and I've really only pointed you in the right direction. Please remember that the exercises I've discussed here require a basic knowledge of training, movement and self-awareness in order to be performed without risk of injury. I'm not saying go back to the machines if you're unsure of yourself! But do consider that an investment in a trainer is an investment in not just your sport, but also your long-term ability to move with ease and function.
