Defining Athleticism

What if mastering a few fundamental movements could unlock your athletic potential? Join us for a deep dive into the essence of athleticism, where we break down the foundational elements that make great athletes. We start by expressing our heartfelt gratitude to our loyal listeners and sharing some thrilling news about upcoming guest appearances. Then, we walk you through a seminar presentation that defines athleticism as the seamless combination of primal movement patterns. Learn how to master the basics. We also introduce the concept of "chunking" complex movements into simpler components to build up your skills effectively.

In the second part of the episode, we focus on the development of youth athletes, emphasizing the mantra that quality trumps quantity. Dive into an in-depth discussion on balancing physical conditioning, mental fortitude, and sport-specific skills to nurture well-rounded athletes. Explore how genetics, geography, and opportunities are pivotal in athletic development. Tune in for valuable insights and actionable strategies to help athletes achieve optimal performance through balanced and holistic training approaches.

Chapters

• 0:27 Understanding Athleticism and Primal Movement Patterns
• 8:58 Maximizing Athletic Development for Youth

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:28

what is cracking, guys. We are back for another episode. I personally want to thank the uh hundred odd something of you guys that listen to every episode. I really appreciate that. Uh doesn't sound like a lot, but that's more than I ever thought uh would be consistency, consistently listening to a podcast that I put together. Again, you just have me working on getting some guests on uh doing a couple where I'm a guest on a couple shows this week and next week. So I'm trying to hash out, get a couple guests on here so you don't have to listen to me ramble on.

Speaker 1: 0:59

I'm sure it gets a little bit old, but today I wanted to cover a presentation that I'm working on for an upcoming seminar I'm going to, and it's a pretty cool one to think about. In terms of it sounds simple what is athleticism? But this kind of puts some parameters around it so you can start to look at how can we develop it, what is it and why do some people have it and some people don't? And for those that don't, you know potentially where you can. You can start right. So the first question is what is athleticism? And you have to define these things to be able to create a plan to improve them, and so enhanced athletics is what we've adopted, and we got this from a company called Power Athlete. They're awesome, they have great education when it comes to youth athlete development.

Speaker 1: 1:52

It's the ability to seamlessly and effortlessly combine primal movement patterns through space to accomplish a known or novel task. So as we go through this presentation, we'll unwrap that a little bit as I talk through it. So again, seamlessly and effortlessly combine primal movement patterns. I love that statement because when you see somebody on the field that's athletic or looks athletic, typically it's because of the lack of effort it takes for them to move in a way that looks good, right. So you're like man. How does that athlete accomplish that task and make it look so easy? So let's jump first into the primal movement patterns and unpack this a little bit.

Speaker 1: 2:29

Now, when we talk about the seven primal movement patterns, I want to add a bonus one at the end. You have the bilateral hip hinge on the x-axis or the horizontal axis, the lunging on the horizontal plane or the y-axis, also known as the sagittal axis, and then you have the transverse sorry, the frontal axis. So the Z plane and the iliac crest of the hip travels along the front plane. So again sounds confusing. It's just the ways that the hip can orientate and move, and I love that, you know the lower body's focused around this for a reason Our athletes that are the fastest, most explosive, most powerful they typically have very good orientation and control of their hips. So the hips really dictate movement and drive movement as well. As you know, healthy patterns versus faulty patterns.

Speaker 1: 3:15

So, and then we go to the upper. We have a vertical push, a vertical pull, a horizontal push and a horizontal pull, Vertical push being you know think about pressing some dumbbells above the head push, press. Vertical pull being your pull up, or that motion of pulling bent over row, and then a horizontal pull would be that bent over row, or any position where we're pulling at a horizontal angle, or horizontal push being a push-up right, so, or a bench press. So there's a lot of different ways to implement these movements, but when you break down any movement in the gym, typically it falls into these categories. Also, I will add rotation, just because rotation combines a handful of these different movement patterns into a movement right, and that's going to be where you see in sport right, your best movers typically can rotate well. So being able to use those movement patterns through space.

Speaker 1: 4:10

Sagittally, you're going to think about your sprinting right, Single leg movements moving along the sagittal plane. Frontal, think about athletes being able to move side to side, change of direction. A lot of times we have athletes that come in and their parents like we want them to be a little bit quicker, be able to move side to side, and that's just getting time and reps and strength in the frontal plane. Move side to side, and that's just getting time and reps and strength in the frontal plane. And then transverse, being where those hips are rotating and moving. Thinking about throwing, hitting any movement like that. You'll also get a subtle bit of transverse movement in your sprinting and a lot of different things you do around the gym as well. Just for the sake of clarity, typically coaches will put that into like a throwing category.

Speaker 1: 4:55

Now, being able to combine those movement patterns X, Y and Z is what really becomes athleticism. So think about any professional athlete talking about how the basics is, how they got to, where they are, being able to master the basics and that's kind of what what the idea is in the gym or in our facility is you're able to master those different movement patterns and then go and combine them on the field, and that's through a process we call chunking. Chunking is just think about Legos you have a big set of box of Legos and you need to create something right, so you need to be able to create athleticism. So how do we do that? It's taking one Lego at a time and building that out. So chunking is the skill of being able to take, you know, movement on the field athleticism and break it down into movement patterns, build up those movement patterns, add different levels and layers until they're able to display that on the field. Now let's get into this seamlessly and effortlessly. So we follow a learning model. I've seen this in multiple different fields uh, different aspects of business leadership, whatnot but it also applies to athletes. So this is the.

Speaker 1: 6:05

The competence window is what I would call it, or the ability to comprehend what you're doing and where you're at in that learning development. So number one would be unconscious incompetence. This is where the athlete walks in. Probably haven't been in our facility before, they have no idea that there's an issue with the movement, so they don't even know that they're doing it wrong. Okay, Typically that's where a parent comes in and talks about what the athlete needs to improve, but the athlete's not really aware of what they need to improve.

Speaker 1: 6:40

Conscious incompetence is potentially when you walk out of the assessment or a couple of first sessions and you're like, okay, I'm aware that I'm doing something wrong and you have kind of the motivation to fix it now because you realize you know, this is how I'm going to improve my performance, this is how I'm going to reach my goals, this is how I'm going to stay healthy. From there you move into conscious competence. That's where you can understand the movement pattern and you've made improvements. You can visually see they've made improvements, but they have to think about it a lot, right, which isn't the best on the field, having to think through things before you do it. So that's where in the gym you can kind of slow things down and have them think through movement patterns and get reps with good competence of the movement. But again, it just takes a lot of brain power to complete them correctly. And then, ultimately, the goal is to get athletes to unconscious competence. That's where they don't have to think about anything. It's full swing from the unconscious incompetence. Now we're doing things correctly and we don't even have to think about it, and that's where you'll see peak performance in sport.

Speaker 1: 7:47

And now let's talk about a little bit about the other section, a known or novel task, so known being closed loop you versus yourself. Another example is you have a set start or finish and there's no external stimulus. So you can think about gymnastics, dance, anything like that, where you have a set routine, you're going to stick to it and that's what you do. Similar can be golf as well. You know exactly what the movement needs to feel like, what you need to do to accomplish it, and there's not going to be obstacles along the way in terms of someone trying to throw off your movement pattern or make you react to them. Now, novel, that's open loop. There's no set start, there's an external stimulus, so a defender or a competitor, and you have an opponent that you're going against. So being able to move that's where unconscious competence really comes into. It is you have to be able to react, move and create plays based on what is being displayed in front of you in real time, While that closed loop is the opposite of that. You kind of have everything set out in front of you and you don't have to react to another opponent.

Speaker 1: 8:59

Next we'll get into when it comes to developing athleticism, don't mistake activity for achievement. So just because you're playing more games, playing more sports, competing in multiple sports, you know whatnot going to Gold's Gym five days a week? Good work is better than a lot of work, right? So being masterful in the way that you decide what you're going to do, bringing in outside sources that are well-educated in this to help point you in the right direction and make sure we're not doing too much. So doing the right things, doing less of the right things, versus doing more of the wrong things, is always going to pan out better in athletic development and the long-term athlete development for your youth athlete. So doing more is not always better.

Speaker 1: 9:44

And then, what's the difference between athlete and athleticism? Okay, so that's. That's something that's important for us to set standards on. Okay, an athlete is an individual who's trained or skilled in sports and competitions that require strength, speed, agility and or stamina for executing of a specific task. So that's what an athlete is right. So do you necessarily have to be athletic to be an athlete? No, because, depending on your sport and competition, that's going to require different aspects of the human performance model. So that's how I define athlete.

Speaker 1: 10:19

Now, when you look at when you talk about the athlete triad. So you have athleticism in one bubble, mental and sports skill in the other. So it goes to show you know sports skill is important, right? So you have athleticism in one bubble, mental and sports skill in the other. So it goes to show you know sports skill is important, right? So you have three separate bubbles and getting athletes to where they all overlap is ideal. So you might have an athlete comes in that's a little bit more athletic, but they lack on the sports skill side and they're pretty strong in the mental side. Or you might have someone come in that's really good at the sports skill, really athletic, but mentally they just can't put it together and they can't keep it cool on the court. So there's a lot of different examples of how this can all pair up and it's getting to know each individual athlete and coaching them to where they have the capacities in each one of those categories athleticism, sports skill and mental that they can find that peak state or that flow state and truly develop as an athlete.

Speaker 1: 11:11

Now, athleticism definitely exists on a continuum. You have obviously, like our young bucks that are very young, all the way up to your collegiate pro athletes. So there's a continuum of development that happens over a long period of time. It's not something necessarily that you're just born with. I would say some people, due to genetics, have an advantage right, they start further up that continuum than others. But we can definitely clearly define where athletes are at and what they need to do to get to where they want to be.

Speaker 1: 11:46

Now, three things that fall into the athletic continuum or athleticism continuum Genetics, like I just mentioned, you don't get to choose your parents, but they can greatly benefit you when it comes to your athletic ability. Geography, so where you're located, the kind of resources that are around. And then opportunity, so this can fall into many categories. Financial also area like what are you afforded as an opportunity as a youth, and that can be dictated by a lot of different things. So those are all different aspects to keep in mind when talking about an athlete.

Speaker 1: 12:21

And then, lastly, would be the sports skill development. This is where, out of my complaint, sometimes a little bit too much, but this is where athletes are focusing on specifically that sport skill. There's sometimes athletes that spend way too much time on the strength and conditioning side but don't spend enough time playing their sport to develop the actual skills that come with the sport. Enough time playing their sport to develop the actual skills that come with the sport, you know, with soccer, dribbling, passing, being able to read the field, make the right decisions at the right time. But I'd say, more often than not, what you find is there's athletes that spend so much time on sport skill and they're pretty good at their sport in terms of that side of it, but physically they just aren't developed enough to display their full ability when it comes to what they have achieved with sports skill. So sports skills are important. They're part of the development process and getting athletes in that setting to get games and get practices in is important. I would say in today's youth culture that has gone to pretty much the extreme. There's a lot of athletes that I think would benefit from less less games, less practices and more focus on developing very key things within their game or developing themselves physically so they are more capable, healthy and robust.

Speaker 1: 13:42

So thanks for tuning in for the episode. I just kind of wanted to walk through this as I work on it, get it out of system. Let me know what you guys think when it comes to what is athleticism. Hopefully it gives you some insights and opportunities to. You know, if you do have a youth athlete or you are an athlete listening to this, ask some better questions. You know, take a 10,000 foot view on where your athlete's at and what they need. But other than that, I appreciate you guys tuning in Again. Follow us on all the social media platforms at Hanson Athletics. If you haven't come into the gym yet, please schedule a free introductory session and we'll be able to give you a lot of value in that. And then, if you're remote, too far away, we've got all kinds of online options. So appreciate you, guys, and have a great day.