The Myth of Perfection

Don’t expect the “perfect” rep to look the same for every athlete.

Trust me I have been there. Trying to get an athlete’s contact point on the power pull better or improving their torso angle in the squat. Too often in the coaching and strength and conditioning field, we pursue an idea of a “perfect” technique or form and will coach an athlete to no ends to get them to what we believe is a “better” position. However, with all the varying physiological attributes that individuals have, it is unfair to expect them all to perform lifts or movements in the same way.

Instead, the focus should be on the best position or movement for that given athlete given their individual biomechanics, training age, and sport. All of which should be considered when a program is being developed. In this article, I am going to give examples of some considerations that should be taken into account with individual athletes that you may come into contact with. While also explaining why most times, less is more.

ATHLETE TRAINING AGE

It is very seldom as a coach that you find you are able to get your hands on your athletes during their earliest stages of development. During which kids are developing motor patterns in throwing, running, jumping, and lifting. These neural pathways are being developed over the years that they are partaking in these tasks. Whether or not they are efficient patterns, we don’t know.

This is why it's important to understand that when we are discussing athlete training age we aren’t talking about whether they are a freshman, sophomore, junior or senior. We are talking about how many years of experience they have in a weight room or performing a particular movement. The reason for understanding where they are as far as training age is because it will tell us things like:

1. Does my athlete or child have the ability and strength to absorb the forces associated with jumping, cutting, and sprinting while playing basketball?
2. Does my athlete or child know how to correctly hinge and sink their hips to be able to break down and make a proper tackle in football?

An athlete should not be expected to perform a complex movement like breaking down if they have never been taught the prerequisites of that given movement. Just as a kid wouldn’t be asked to perform multiplication before learning addition.

It is a scary thought that young athletes are thrown into tasks as complex as tackling another human before ever developing the visual, proprioceptive, or vestibular skills to control their body in order to safely make a tackle. So yelling “break down” and “keep your head up” is going to be very inefficient as opposed to a child who was taught how to control their body in a setting like the weight room.

Unfortunately, the same thing goes in the weight room. Often times an athlete is thrown into a front squat or deadlift before they even know how to hinge properly. So how can they be expected to develop a “perfect technique.” Throwing a bunch of cues and commands to fix it sure as heck won't be very efficient. This is why a system with progressions/regressions must be in place so there can be a focus on a much smaller movement such as the hinge. We call that a developmentally appropriate program.

Overwhelming an athlete can be avoided if his or her training age is taken into consideration. This is accomplished by breaking a complex movement into smaller sub-movements to ensure the task won't overstimulate the athlete.

INPUTS DICTATE OUTPUTS

With this overstimulation in mind when coaching, it’s good to talk about how inputs affect outputs. In short, the input dictates the output. Bad or inefficient input results in bad output or performance. The same thing is true with the complexity of input. If the athlete is having to take in a large input, they aren’t going to give the best output.

This can easily be avoided by teaching things in sequence. For example, in lifting we might teach the hang clean pull like this:

1. Teach athletes how to properly hinge and return to starting position without a load.
2. Teach athletes to hinge with light to moderate weight.
3. Teach athletes how to get into a triple extended position at a controlled speed.
4. Allow athletes to perform movement dynamically.

The reason this would be more effective would be because you are controlling how much input they get, allowing them to accomplish it, then building on top of that good foundation.

Structure vs. Function

Often in strength and conditioning and sports, there is always something that is considered “perfect” technique or form. Whether you’re talking about a clean progression, squat, sprinting, or throwing mechanics, there is usually a typical standard movement pattern involved that is being coached when in reality technique is arbitrary considering the differentiating characteristics of each individual athlete. This is why understanding that structural differences are going to be paramount in defining what “perfect” technique is for that given person.

We will use the squat to show an example in the difference in structure, resulting in a different function in the back squat.

We have all heard that coach yelling “keep your chest up” tirelessly at their athlete as they perform the squat. However, let us look at some reasons why this is not a very good cue to use for athletes.

As you can see in the picture above, the difference in the structure (femur length) changes how each athlete would perform the lift (function).

However, there are other limiting factors in which to consider in conjunction with the femur length.

1. Ankle Dorsiflexion- occurs in your ankle when you draw your toes back toward your shins. Also known as the ability to track the knee over the toes.
2. Pelvic Control- the ability to control your pelvis into an anterior/posterior tilt, as well as lateral elevation/depression. Which will be a big factor in whether there will be a lot of lumbar stress when performing the squat.
3. Scapular Mobility/Rhythm- The ability to keep the shoulder blades in a tight compact (retracted) position.

A quick take away from the picture above would be, the athlete with the longer femur would have a more drastic degree of torso lean than the athlete with the shorter femur. Thus giving the illusion that one squat may be worse than the other.

“DON’T TEACH A SPORT TO A SPORT”

I have been hearing this for years from coach Kirk Byerly while working for Performance Course. It is a very simple concept. Don’t try and teach a sport to a sport. Meaning, don’t expect a football, basketball, baseball, or volleyball player, etc. to perfect an olympic lift or have flawless technique in the squat. Having these expectations will definitely insure that we will be overcoaching and over stimulating the athlete.

Now am I saying don’t coach them hard? Not at all. However, we shouldn’t be exactly worried about critiquing the bar path in the transition of a clean. If they are still getting a good powerful triple extension, then we should be getting what we want out of the lift. The same thing goes for throwing or shot mechanics. Should we really try and change someone’s throwing motion if they are able to throw it at an elite level already? Or change a jump shot if the athlete is already draining shots? I don’t think so. Changing these subtle things could decrease performance. As they will be new inputs for the athlete. Meaning the neural pathways that were developed over years need to be removed, and now create new ones. Which would in return make the new throw or shot sub-optimal, and more insufficient than the old one.

CONCLUSION

There are more circumstances where less is more when it comes to coaching. I believe a lot of the times our intentions are good as far as trying to teach “correct” or “ideal” technique. However, teaching a volleyball player how to have optimal bar path on the transition of their power/hang clean is a regression that may not be worth the progression. In reality, they probably get more from the triple extension alone. I believe instead we should focus on what works organically for that given athlete based on where they are at in their individual training development.