Teaching the hang position to an athlete at the World Athletics Center
In my training philosophy, mastery of the basics refers to performing high-quality movement with intention and attention. Only once tasks are consistently executed along the lines of these criteria will we begin to incorporate more advanced stages.
What are the basics?
The unfortunate answer is, it depends. As a coach, you must determine the approach best suited to your situation. Maybe you do not have access to bumper plates and Olympic barbells. Maybe you ONLY have access to bumper plates and Olympic barbells. Regardless of your situation, quality ALWAYS takes precedence over quantity and again, only once the most basic elements of the given tasks are consistently executed properly will we look to progress from them.
What is the importance of intention and attention?
In his book, Mastery, Robert Greene states, “Our ancestors survival depended on the intensity of their attention”. While athletics is no matter of life and death, if that does not portray the importance of intention and attention I’m not sure what will.
An athlete will rarely be able to reach the level of movement quality needed without intention and attention to every single repetition. Also, an extremely high degree of awareness must be present at practice to ensure safety (especially in the weight room) and promote stabilization of skill and actualization to the competitive environment.
An athlete who comes to practice with intention and attention will experience a much more profound training effect than the athlete that goes through the motions and is not fully engaged in the process.
Why is mastering the basics so hard?
We are an impatient, outcome driven society. We attempt to expedite the process in hopes of reaping all the rewards at a sooner date. A select few will still manage to find success in this fashion but for most of us it is a recipe for disaster.
The process should be half the fun of athletics. Sure its not as sexy as the fame and glory of success in competition but isn’t it in the process where the passion and connection come from? And isn’t it the passion and connection that lead to the true fulfillment of any athletic endeavor? And isn’t fulfillment what we are all in search of?
High quality movement performed with intention and attention will create a cornerstone on which to build passion, connection, fulfillment, and ultimately, athletic success.