" You have to be in shape. if you're not in shape, you cant
recover. If you cant recover, you cant do more work. If you cant do more work,
you'll never get any stronger" – Louie Simmons
I had mentioned in my first post that many are held back from something called "functional fixedness". The test most commonly used to see if someone has this is that picture of a box of thumb tacks, a candle, and a box of matches. You're asked to stick the candle to the wall so as not to have it drip any wax while the candle burns.
Ok, I'm sorry as I assume that was painfully dull and you've heard it a million times before, but I'm trying to be somewhat proper in my setup here leading into my perception of programs.
I would say that how a coach can feel about specialization in a program would fall on a continuum rather than saying they are either black or white on the subject. You can't be SO specialized that you ONLY perform one or two movements, and the opposite holds true that you can't possibly feel that it is detrimental to try and improve an aspect of fitness by focusing on it for whatever period of time. Everyone falls somewhere on a continuum.
The friction comes from, in my opinion, too many people agreeing that you need to be on the far end of the line towards specialization. This leaves the people who wish to dabble elsewhere on that line a minority, and when it comes down to majority vs minority you can expect to see some very obvious and predictable human behaviors.
Let us remember though that any and every coach is, in every sense of the meaning, a scientist. You are guessing at things all the time, trying them out on your victims, and seeing if they work. As such, we should not be quick to try and protect our beloved programs as religious relics (again, see the connection I draw between religion and the exercise industry in my first post).
It irritates me that you see "scientifically proven" so much in this field. One of my research methods professors said a great line one day when she warned the class, "as soon as you say someone who claims to be a scientist that they have proven something, deny them any credibility." So many programs are written on the premise of a technique found in an article shown to produce results, and then given the supposed gold seal stamp of being a scientifically proven program guaranteeing results. Listen, I'm not going to get into the nuts and bolts of just how little of a percentage needs to be seen to claim something statistically significant, or even how easy (and common!) it is to manipulate the parameters to reach that point. I will say though that if anything could reach the point of being 70% generalize-able to the public it would be patented so quick it would make your head spin. Just 70%! So, lets say you just so happen to love using the one and only program that actually meets this criteria (and I'm not sure there is one, but let's keep pretending), you're going to have success with it only 70% of the time.
Now, let me get just a little math-y on you here. If you have 100 clients, and that magical program, you will have taken care of 70 athletes. You still have 30 left to tend to, but you find another magical program. Still, that only takes care of 21 athletes out of those 30. Lucky you, you yet again find another magical program, but find it only takes care of 6 out of the 9 athletes you have left. Well, after that you don't care if you lose 3 so you halt your crusade for programs.
Ok, hopefully you get what I'm saying here. Even if you had the magic touch and found program after program that worked for that astronomically amazing 70% of the population, you would still need at least 3 programs to have success in 97% of your clients.
And that's not even getting into the fact that you can't keep an athlete on the same program forever!!!
So it makes no sense to hold any "special" configuration of sets and reps so close to heart. Nothing is sacred in science. I pointed you towards the path of infinity in my first post by asking you to learn how to formulate better questions. In accepting the notion of infinite learning through infinite questioning, you must also accept that there is probably always a better way of doing what you're already doing.
Now lets get back to functional fixedness.
I see a lot of programs written around the idea that an athlete needs to improve a specific athletic quality. More to the point, a specific strength. Speed strength, absolute strength, relative strength, etc. You have programs for hammer throwers, runners, sprinters, powerlifters, strongman, and on and on. Whatever program you use, it has been created around the goal of increasing the strength type that is displayed in your sport.
Now lets think back to that picture of the box of thumbtacks, matches, and a candle. Lets say the box represents, oh I don't know, speed strength. The matches are absolute strength. The tacks themselves are endurance, and the candle is power. You're goal as a coach is to program so that candle is high up on that wall, wick lit, and not letting any of that wax drip. You already know the deal, you gotta be resourceful and use everything to get that candle up there, but we often see that coach just trying to hold that candle against the wall with their hand don't we? You want to develop power, so you train power. What else is there to do!?
Part 1 end...
