The "Zone"

“How do you get to Carnegie Hall?”

“Practice, practice, practice.  But only perfect practice makes perfect.”

Have you ever seen an athlete accomplish something amazing?  When asked about it, they tend not to be able to quantify what they did other than saying that they were locked in, that they were relaxed and in the “zone.” 

What exactly is the “Zone”?

The “Zone” is that peak state of mind when an athlete performs optimally.  The athlete transcends the game for the moment and in a state of excited relaxation, they perform at a high level.   Naturally, the next question is how do we attain this level, consistently?  The answer is preparation, of course.

Opportunity is when chance meets preparation.   Part of preparation is understanding how to prepare.  Matching an athlete’s skills to their sports needs is very important.  Yet, understanding what phase of learning is paramount.

Everyone goes through three phases of learning when they learn a physical skill. 

1.        Cognitive Phase:   The individual is very unstable.   They are just sorting through what the skill / movement is and typically self-talk to help themselves through.   They need a great deal of focus to move and not with mastery.

2.       Associative Phase:  here the individual understands the skill / movement more, but they lack confidence and show slight instability.  Some self-talk can happen here.  A good deal of focus is necessary without mastery.

3.       Autonomous:  No thoughts about it.  Total mastery of the movement or skill.  They can have a conversation while achieving their goals.  If they stay in this phase “boredom” ensues. 

I submit that athletes who are in the “zone” have entered into the autonomous phase of learning when they are in the zone.  When the athlete isn’t focused on their basic game skills because they’ve mastered those skills, they can focus on game strategy.   Remember, they’ve got some sort of competition and their ability to not only out perform their competition but to more importantly out play their competition is paramount.  I’ve seen much better physical specimen athletes get bested by an opponent time and time again primarily because those high caliber athletes didn’t understand they needed to think above their basic skills.  

 The ease with which athletes in the zone function allow them to think ahead and survey their field on a higher level thus acting on a higher level and giving them a competitive advantage.  They can strategize and execute their strategies without stumbling over basic game play skills.  Athletes such as Michael Jordan and Joe Montana give us example upon example of an athlete who wasn’t necessarily the strongest or greatest physical specimen in their sport (although Jordan was amazing) yet they function at higher levels than most of their peers dominating their sport because they could lift themselves above the game while in the “Zone.”

The trick, as a trainer, is to train for the zone.  How?  Well, understanding each athlete and the needs of their sports is primary.  Training for the mental adaptation of the skills of their sport to allow the athlete to enter the zone is the next step.  It’s also where a lot of coaches, in my humble opinion, go wrong. 

Practice does not make perfect.  Perfect practice makes perfect.  Whether in the gym or on the field, it’s incumbent upon a coach to maximize the time and abilities of their athletes.  Every year there is always an article about some football, baseball, softball, soccer, tennis, golf, or name your sport coach in which the athletes are practiced into injury, dehydration collapse, or some other deadly malady.  Why?  Because most coaches coach to their ego / sporting record and do not coach to their athlete’s abilities or needs.   The needs of a program take over the needs of an athlete (usually young athletes).  

There’s also a misunderstanding about the autonomous phase of learning a physical skill.  The misunderstanding is the idea of too much of the same kind of practice.  I submit that as an athlete progresses forward in their skills, adding to their skills becomes more important than repeating the same skills.  Once an athlete is in the autonomous phase adding components that would allow an athlete to learn about their game on a deeper strategy level becomes incredibly important.

So, train an athlete’s ability to learn higher skills once they attain the autonomous level.    Stay away from over practicing the same skills without adaptation.  Coach to an athlete and not to the program which sometimes means losing a battle to win a war.  

Mo-tate.  Motivate your life to Motion!

Planning to change your plan...

A multinational corporation advertises for a secretary.  A golden retriever applies for the job, passes the typing test, and is granted an interview.  The human – resources manager asks, “Do you speak any foreign languages?”

And the golden retriever replies “Meow.”

Ok.  So I JUST GOT MY BUTT kicked by Coach Rick Lademann at Beyond Motion in his group style metabolic training class.  Why? 

I train primarily for Baseball.   I use my own workouts to make me a better baseball player: pitcher and hitter.  I still find myself working at gaining strength and then translating that strength to useful skill development like agility and an ability to toss a baseball.    

All I mean is  I don’t work out like most people.  I don’t rely on a group class to design my program for either endurance –strength training (not maximal strength: important distinction) or a traditional body builder workout.  You know the kind: back and bi’s, chest and tri’s.  Legs and shoulders. 

And I don’t rely on a set of machines to determine my workout.  Nope.  

Here’s what I do:  I take several movements (science has shown that alternating joint actions and balancing the planes of motion during a workout leads to long term healthy movement / strength promotion) and I execute them for strength.  I time my rest period using 45 seconds of rest and I’ll execute 4-5 sets of work.  I focus on 3-5 major movements and leave my ancillary stuff for a day just to work on all the little movements that help the big ones.

Why did I get beat up by a class?  Different energy system needs and significantly higher volume of work load.  When you do about 40 curls with sets of 10 separated by 2 other movements, the volume of 2 15lbs dumbbells suddenly becomes pretty high. 

But the great thing is that my perspective was changed through the class. 

Early in my career I was very cynical about  yoga.   Currently you may have seen all the articles in the media about yoga practioners who are having problems with their joints because they practice so much yoga.  Yoga is a useful  method to work on flexibility and endurance – strength.  It’s not the whole picture of fitness but it’s a great way to gain range of motion training and if you like the philosophy of it, well, all the better for you.  However, I was cynical about yoga because many of its practitioners were a little one track minded about it.  I was cynical, until I took a class.  I LOVE Yoga.  I always feel really great after a class and I’ve decided that it can be a useful component of my own fitness.  

The great thing about developing a long term perspective is being able to make lots of small choices over time to try new ideas.   Having a plan is about understanding a focus to attain your goals but having a plan is also focused enough to achieve your goals and flexible enough to actually account for obstacles that always occur in our lives.  I challenge all of us to keep challenging our perspectives and to incorporate new ideas if it makes sense to add them.  We don’t “change things up” for changes sake.  We change something if it makes sense to improve our perspective. Plan on changing your plan.  

Mo-tate.  Motivate your life to Motion!

Activity for LIFE!

What do you like to do?   Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE Baseball, all aspects of baseball.  I came upon this sport as a young man and I was frustrated by a body that would not grow fast enough for me to compete on a high school level.  I was cut twice from my high school team.  Frustrated by my own limitations, I was humiliated. 

In college, I didn’t pursue it.  Partly, I was focused on my major and on a certain path but partly because I didn’t have the courage to follow my convictions, to my regret now. 

Sometime around 7 years ago, I met a former minor league pitcher.  He befriended me and I realized that he and I shared quite a bit.  Most importantly, my passion for baseball and being active in a sport that I enjoy was awakened. 

So, at age 29, I decided to find a recreational team to play baseball.  I found one and for the last 6 years I’ve played for one team or another.  At first, I was awful.  However, I’ve committed myself to improving.  I like to pitch and I’m relatively good at it.  My stats are mediocre to poor, but I’ve had real moments of brilliance that make all my hard work pay off. 

Now I’m 36 (about to be 37) and I still play baseball.  I still work on my pitching and I LOVE IT!  I know that I will continue to follow this passion as an activity for the rest of my life because I find the activity so fulfilling.

Every time I work out, my workouts serve the purpose of making me a better baseball player.  The drive to become better so that I can enjoy my sport more, will feed my enjoyment of the game.

Why tell you all this?  Simple: I want you to find an activity that you love so that you will continue to work on it your whole life long.  Now that I live in Florida, naturally the population of clients that I work with is significantly older than the population I worked with in NYC.  One thing I see, over and over is regret over not finding a way to incorporate exercise in their life. 

The people who have found that time for themselves tend to show much better health in their older days.  The folks who haven’t made time for themselves in activity tend to degrade at an alarming rate.

Our bodies are designed to get better.  The old phrase:

“You stop being good when you stop getting better,” elucidates exactly what happens on a regular basis. 

We have this stigma about getting older:  that we slow down.   Certainly, entropy plays a part.  However, I came across a study measuring overall metabolism of aging individuals and animals.  Here’s a simplified version:

In studying the metabolism of animals, it’s been discovered that animals metabolism stay relatively high until death. 

In studying the metabolism of humans (Americans in particular) it’s been discovered that there is a degrading of metabolism over time and then death.

Basically, the quality of life and metabolism degrade over a long period of time.

This degrade is attributed to modern medicine, our sedentary lives, and real inactivity. 

I URGE all of us to seek out an activity they enjoy. If you enjoy doing something, you will do it for a long period of time.  Remember: I’m interested in LONG TERM philosophies.  I don’t want a quick fix scheme, but rather a long term perspective that will serve us life long.

Get active.  Keep your metabolism high!  Increase your quality of life!  I wish you to enjoy what you do.  Exercise can be a chore, but let’s make it a pleasure by choosing something YOU LOVE!

Mo-tate.  Motivate your life to MOTION! 

The future of fitness

The lookout on a battleship spies a light ahead off the starboard bow.  The captain tells him to signal the other vessel, “Advise you change course twenty degrees immediately.”  The answer comes back, “Advise you change course twenty degrees immediately!”  

The captain is furious.  He signals, “I am a captain.  We are on a collision course.  Alter your course twenty degrees, now!”

The answer comes back, “I am a seaman second class and I strongly urge you to alter your course twenty degrees.”

Now the Captain is beside himself with rage.  He signals, “I am a battleship.”

The answer comes back,

“I am a lighthouse.”

This is often how the future and the past meet, particularly in the fitness industry.  Basic beliefs are held on for so long that it’s not until cataclysmic events threaten that we open our perspective to change with the future.  

Working out has been around since before the Greeks.  The Chinese 5 – 6000 years ago had basic fitness competence tests to qualify for service in the military.  Yet, it’s been in the last 30 years, since the great advent of the Russian scientists to the west in the 1980’s that has led to the great leaps and bounds in available information about working out. 

Many professional sporting teams, including colleges, still train their athletes with outdated methodology and application.  Why such a resistance to upgrading the training methods?

1.     Especially in a sporting program the safe perspective of success is tempting.

a.    If what you’ve always done has always gotten you winning results, why change it? 

2.     It’s difficult to do something new and trust that you will attain your goals.

a.    Without the actual experience of having succeeded with the new methodology, not only does trust get worn away but so could any small window of opportunity to achieve your goal.  

Ahh, but here’s the rub.  You and I are futurists.  If you’re reading this blog, you understand from my posts that I’m intimately interested in improving and evolving my own perspective as well as helping you do the same.  That means we need to embrace change with the understanding that we are process, not result driven.  This is difficult thinking to encourage.

Everywhere we go, we see the results and final products of years’ worth of effort.  From award ceremonies to accomplishments, we see the actual moment of celebration or achievement.  We didn’t see all the hard work that someone put into that achievement to culminate into that moment of success.   We see the result and we (as a society) tend to seek instant gratification.   It’s easy.  It’s accessible.  It’s the happy ending of the movie in which we see a montage capture years’ worth of effort. 

The problem is that real life takes time.   Results take time.

What happens when we seek result driven effort?  Ever hear of the ends justifying the means?   All effort is justified so long as it achieves the goals.   I mean ALL effort.  So, if you’re playing a game how you play it doesn’t matter so long as you achieve your result.  That can (and often does) mean in order to operate with result driven thinking, hurting others can be acceptable. This is known as short term thinking.

All those diet fads out there will always be out there.  Somebody somewhere will always have some quick fix, magic elixir to sell promising the stars but delivering a magic trip nowhere.  I urge all of us to be a futurist. 

Think long term about your fitness.  Work today so that tomorrow is not compromised, but rather complimented.  A little work every day suddenly builds pretty quickly.  I’m always amazed at how quickly time can pass.  Avoid the lighthouses’ of our lives by embracing change:  long term.

Think long term and decide what you can do today and every day to stay active in your life.

Be a Futurist. 

Mo-tate.  Motivate your life to Motion!

If anyone needs help in determining how to accept long term change into their fitness program, please do not hesitate to contact me at: pcmtrain1@hotmail.com

If you fail to plan....

Person A: My grandfather knew the exact day he was going to die.

Person B: Really?  What an enlightened guy.  How did he know?

Person A:  it was the day the judge set his execution.

Yikes.  We’ve all heard if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.  In our workouts that truth is exactly the same.  The nice thing about a plan is that it’s focused enough to get us the results we want but its flexible enough to bend with inevitable hiccups along the way.  

Life often throws us interesting curve balls.  Sometimes the full hour we’ve given ourselves to work out can be reduced by ½ because of outside commitments (work, personal relationships, or other serendipitous events) that force us to make concessions.  This now becomes an opportunity, if you’re prepared.  Some of the best workouts I’ve had have been time shortened forcing me to take less rest in order to accomplish the same amount of work.   

However, I’m often surprised how often I actually accomplish my goals when I plan on accomplishing them.  That’s not to say, I think it and it becomes real.  Rather, I’m saying, I plan on working on my goal regularly and sure enough: I do!  

I want to encourage all of you to take time every week (I typically do it at the end of the week) and plan out the next week.  Determine the important priorities and SCHEDULE them into your life.  I hope you include some physical activity or even some formal workouts.  When you take control of your schedule, you schedule your accomplishments.

Mo-tate.  Motivate your life to Motion!