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By Charles Staley, B.Sc, MSS
Director, Staley Training Systems
Before a new building can be erected
on a site where an older building exists, the older building must
be demolished first.
In much the same way, I’m going
to start this article by demolishing a dearly-held myth that many
trainees have regarding their avocation of choice:
"I’ll
finally reach my goals when I find the perfect training (or nutritional)
program."
WRONG
Look, it’s not your fault - I’ve
been there too. I’ve had the experience of discovering some
unique program in the latest muscle magazine that some super stud
athlete supposedly used to transform himself from nothing to something.
Even today, when I run across a unique
training concept or program, I still salivate at the discovery…anticipating
the workouts, the novelty of a new program. Problem is, you have
to clarify your objective: is your passion in life intellectual
masturbation, or breaking through long-standing plateaus to new
PR’s? If you answered the latter, read on.
Performance (or progress) Improves Only When Weak
Links Are Identified And Fortified
It’s pretty much this simple:
if you want your chain to lift heavier weights, you’ve got
to inspect that chain link by link, and identify the weakest segment
in that chain. Then you’ve got to find a way to make that segment
as strong, if not stronger than the others. Then you’ve got
to find the second weakest link and repeat the process, which, incidentally,
never ends.
NOTE: Aside from avoiding habituation
(the body’s ever-decreasing reaction to repetitive, unchanging
stimuli), the most important reason for altering training programs
is to account for the continuous introduction of “new”
primary weak links).
Hunting For Kingpins
In the logging industry, professional
loggers have a very effective way to figure out how to clear huge
log-jams as they attempt to send large numbers of trees down the
river. What they do is to go downstream and find the “kingpin:”
this is the single log which, if re-positioned ever so slightly,
will restore the flow of logs down the river.
In much the same way, you’ll
need to find your own personal kingpins if you ever expect to accelerate
your own rate of progress.
Some theorists suggest that one should
ignore weaknesses and instead, focus on strengths. However, from
my experience, a strength overused becomes
a weakness. In assessing your own situation, determine
whether or not the weak link is CORRECTABLE.
If not, don’t worry about it.
If so, make it the number one priority until it is no longer your
weakest correctable link.
The Staley Equation:
This is a strategy that I developed
from my work with Olympic and professional athletes, as well as
members of my private coaching group. In essence, the
rule states that one should prioritize training elements
(which could refer to habits, behaviors, muscle groups, motor qualities,
etc) which are:
- Needed
- Under-developed
- Highly trainable
- Foundational to other elements
- Given available resources
As a brief explanation, let’s
look at the motor quality of maximal strength. For many athletes,
it is needed AND underdeveloped. It is also quite easily improvable
compared to some other motor qualities (such as speed, which has
significant genetic constraints).
Maximal strength creates a base for
the development of speed strength, hypertrophy, strength-endurance,
and can also help athletes avoid injuries. Finally, maximal strength
can be developed using very rudimentary equipment such as barbells
and dumbbells.
So, it’s clear that for many
trainees, maximal strength should be prioritized according to the
Q2 Prioritization Rule.
Most People’s Weak Links Relate
To BEHAVIORS, Not Activities
Most people, when examining their
own training experiences, will notice that they have made acceptable
levels of progress using all manner of training systems and approaches.
Most will attribute this phenomenon to the fact that ANY new program
will provoke an adaptive response (at least temporarily), simply
due to it’s novelty.
However, I do not believe the novelty
of a new training stimulus is sufficient to explain this observation.
Instead, I propose that whether or
not someone is successful during any given training program has
less to do with the program per se, and more to do with the PERSON
(and specifically, his or her behavior) as the program is carried
out.
Now, of course, I’m not saying
that intelligently-designed training programs aren’t important
- after all, I’ve created a career out of designing programs
and teaching program design. I’m simply saying that for many
people, developing better behaviors will have a greater payoff than
looking for better programs (activities).
The Seven Behaviors
of Highly Successful Athletes
There are many behaviors which lend
themselves to successful training outcomes. For the purposes of
this column however, I’ll focus on seven behaviors which I
believe are tantamount for unprecedented levels of success:
1) Delayed Gratification
It has been said that the pain of
self-discipline weighs ounces; while the pain of neglect weighs
tons. Maturity is defined by the willingness to sacrifice now in
order to experience a greater outcome in the future. This applies
especially to nutrition and supplementation, since the positive
outcomes of a sound nutritional program take weeks, if not months,
to experience.
2) Consistency
Training is a form of motor learning,
and learning requires repetition. Training consistency can be dramatically
enhanced through a variety of techniques, but one of the most powerful
methods is also the simplest: scheduling.
There is a VAST difference between
thinking "Tomorrow I’m going to work out." and "My
workout is between 7-8am tomorrow morning."
In the first case, you might have
a vague time-frame in mind, say 8:00am. However, by 7:30, you’re
behind schedule, so you reason to yourself that you’ll train
after work. Then, by the time you leave work, you realize that you
didn’t bring your gym clothes with you, so you think "I’ll
just train after dinner."
And of course, after dinner, you’re
tired and distracted by the television, and guess what? You missed
your workout! Now, you might rationalize that you’ll just do
the workout tomorrow instead. This leads you to the incorrect assumption
that you simply rescheduled your workout rather than skipping it,
which is exactly what you did.
On the other hand, knowing that you
have a workout (or a meal) scheduled at an exact time, you’ll
be much more likely to prepare for and keep your appointment. If
you DO fail to keep to the schedule, you’ll be much more likely
to feel a sense of consequence for your decision.
3) Goal-Directedness
The failure to develop goal-directed
behavior accounts for more failure than all other causes combined.
Most people understand that goals much be specific, measurable,
attainable, relevant, and time-referenced (S.M.A.R.T.), however,
many people fail to carefully weigh the benefits of achieving the
goal versus what must be sacrificed.
If, upon careful inspection, you are
deeply convinced that the benefits justify the sacrifices, you’ll
create the psychic and emotional fuel necessary to sustain your
motivation when the going gets rough (as it inevitably does!).
4) The Autotellic Mindset
Autotellic people do things primarily
for their own intrinsic value, whereas exotellic people do things
primarily for the secondary, external reward. In my experience,
autotellic athletes are far better able to sustain their motivation.
The take home lesson is this: people who
just LOVE to train go much further than those who just want to look
better.
5) Open-Mindedness
Closed-mindedness is, in my opinion,
a genetically-ingrained survival trait. Thousands of years ago,
a Neanderthal man looked under a rock and found some grubs to eat.
The technique obviously had value, and it made more sense to look
under more rocks than it did to look up in the trees.
But for this Neanderthal to go beyond
mere survival, he should in fact look up in the trees, for if he
did, he might find better food choices. In many ways, athletes are
the same way.
At some point in their athletic careers,
they are convinced to train in a certain way, and because this way
lead to a certain degree of success, they now pronounce this "way"
as the "only way." So remain
receptive to new ideas, because usually, the thing you’re looking
for is where you aren’t looking!
6) Fatigue Management
We LOVE to feel fragged after a workout,
so much so that subconsciously, we tend to actually modify the workout
to produce more post-workout fatigue, rather than to permit a better
training performance.
When you’re trying to do gradually
more and more work from session to session, fatigue-management skills
are essential. I’ll address several unique Q2 fatigue management
strategies for an upcoming column.
7) Lifestyle
Many athletes spend untold hours examining
and re-examining their training, nutrition, and supplement schedule,
while at the same time completely ignoring the fact that their life
is antagonistic to their training efforts, rather than supportive
of them.
Late night partying, exhausting job
schedules (I know what you’re thinking here, but jobs CAN be
changed if you have a good-enough reason), and general inefficiency
can wreak havoc on the best laid plans.
Putting The Concepts
Into Action
Where to go now you’re wondering?
Here’s my suggestion to anyone
who’s serious about optimizing their training-related behaviors
- do a simple self-evaluation inventory.
After giving it some careful thought,
make a list of your 3 most destructive behaviors. Rank them
from best to worst. Next, consider the root causes and possible
remedies for these behaviors. Can you develop substitutes or alternatives?
That’s your homework for now.
In future articles, I’ll share more Q2 (pronounced "Q-squared")
principles and strategies that I’ve used with unprecedented
results with my athletes.
About
The Author
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His colleagues call him an iconoclast,
a visionary, a rule-breaker. His clients call him “The
Secret Weapon” for his ability to see what other coaches
miss. Charles calls himself a “geek” who struggled
in Phys Ed throughout school. Whatever you call him, Charles’
methods are ahead of their time and quickly produce serious
results. His counter-intuitive approach and self-effacing
demeanor have lead to appearances on NBC’s The TODAY
Show and The CBS Early Show.
Currently, Charles competes
in Olympic-style weightlifting on the master’s circuit,
with a 3-year goal of qualifying for the 2009 Master’s
World Championships.
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Learn More
About
EDT Training!
Charles Staley’s
training package "The Complete
Video Guide To Escalating Density Training" is available
now!
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