“You can practice shooting eight hours a day, but if your technique is wrong, then all you become is very good at shooting the wrong way. Get the fundamentals down and the level of everything you do will rise.” - Michael Jordan
Treat your health & fitness like you would a competitive sport. Master the fundamentals, attack your weaknesses often, and focus on making day-to-day progress.
Flexibility, cardiovascular fitness, strength, balance, speed, power, and stability. These are the building blocks for health & fitness. Develop them and soon, very soon, you’ll be the best you’ve ever been.
Answer me this:
If you can’t touch your toes, are you ready to deadlift?
If you can’t control a body weight squat, should you be doing box jumps?
The answer is obviously no. However, the current trend in fitness is to push yourself harder and harder on every single workout. We’re all in a rush to do the sexiest and coolest exercises. Unfortunately, this approach rarely works. Workouts stop being fun and become ineffective at best, painful at worst.
The key to success is not in crushing yourself every single workout.
The key to success is in developing a strong foundation. A foundation built on strength, flexibility, speed, core stability, and balance.
Every new client or athlete begins their training experience with me with a full and detailed assessment of their fundamentals. The assessment begins with a FMS (Functional Movement Screen). The FMS grades 7 of their movements, from 0-3, with scores of 0-1 revealing dysfunction and scores of 2-3 displaying skill.
A client with 0’s or 1’s is then tested in a variety of positions, both for flexibility and stability. We find the cause of the failing score and then determine the specific exercises that will improve it. Specifically, we work together to build a strong foundation from the ground up - literally. We focus on building flexibility and strength while working on the ground; the most stable and best position to learn from.
Clients with 2’s and 3’s are tested on their performance. We identify weak links or gaps in their fitness and then create a program to master them. The goal becomes performance enhancement. Not just for sports, but for everyday life. Often, we will build automatically build a stronger foundation by choosing exercises that are difficult to do incorrectly.
For the person that’s always struggled with their form on a deadlift or a squat, this process is invaluable. They can spend a handful of weeks rebuilding their foundation - and set new records on their performance with a fraction of the effort. Often, minor aches and pains go away or decrease with this approach (excluding any major injuries).
Take the time to honestly assess your weaknesses and meet them head on. You’ll save an incredible amount of time in the process and achieve greater fitness.