Tag Archives: play

Play, long-term athletic development, and how to become a superhuman fitness model

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My friend Aaron Schwenzfeier posted a great post earlier this week about Long Term Athletic Development Models and pain/inury-free competition. Click on the link to read his post.

Aaron’s main point was that even Long Term Athletic Development models (which are currently only found in Australia and Canada, to my knowledge), suffer because they don’t embrace PLAY throughout the lifespan.

My response was to his post was this:

YES!!!

That was my experience as well…organized sports supplemented my PLAY activity…not vice versa.

And today, the same is true.

My problem with the “LTAD” models out there is that they posit some “goal state” that isn’t in the present moment.

How about “Present-Term Athletic Development?” PTAD

Wherever you are, that’s where you need to focus your efforts and abilities.

Getting to some “goal-state” might happen, but that should be an intention more than a rigid and forced outcome.

What’s the goal right now, always?

For me, and for any athlete or other person I’ve ever met, THE CURRENT GOAL HAS ALWAYS BEEN THIS:

+ to improve strength power and endurance (the %’s may vary)
+ to improve range of motion
+ to improve agility and reactivity
+ to improve tissue quality, and recover-ability…
and
+ TO HAVE MORE FUN

I’ve never met ANY client – athlete, non-athlete, bodybuilder, etc., who wouldn’t agree that they want to do those things.

“Physique” goals are important for bodybuilders, but even that goal takes a backseat to those above for most of the bodybuilders I’ve ever met.

Want to do that? CONTACT LIFT NOW.

Want to know how? Sign up for my newsletter and prepare thyself for the book I’m currently writing.

Exuberant Animal Video Sampler and Trainer Certification Path

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Exuberant Animal released a Video Sampler yesterday, along with an announcement and outline of the EA Trainer Certification Path.

Having been part of EA for the past three years, and a member of the development team both for the video and trainer path, I’m incredibly excited for these first steps to be done.

Please go take a look, and buy the video! The EA games are fantastic games for many reasons (that I’ll be outlining in future posts) – but the best way to figure out their effect is to try them for yourself!

If you’re a movement specialist, and you’re interested in changing the paradigm of training in the world today, sign up for one of the two (one East Coast and one West Coast) trainer jams happening this October.

Most of all – HAVE FUN!

The Importance of Movement Quality

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While movement quantity can be important enough for certain outcomes that it becomes an area of focus, movement quality must be seen as the primary goal in any form of training. The quality of your movement will determine the outcome that quantity ends up producing.

I’ll pick on bodybuilding a bit in this post because it is usually seen as the most repetition-heavy form of strength training out there.

So let’s take the biceps curl in bodybuilding as an example. Common wisdom on the subject says that one can perform this bodybuilding movement that is “single-joint” (using primarily the elbow joint) with a weight that allows 8-12 repetitions in one set before exhaustion/”failure,” with big biceps (hypertrophy) as a result.

That is true on some level, but what about quality? No movement is truly “single-joint.” In any movement the moving part is attached to the rest of the body, which must either support, stabilize or assist the moving joint in its efforts.

We see this all the time – the person on the bodybuilding plan using their hips to drive the weight up.

In this video, Tuan Tran is intentionally doing “cheat” curls. You can tell by his physique that he’s relatively experienced. So, in this instance, the movement quality from the hips is assisting in exposing the muscle (with a controlled eccentric/lowering phase) to more overload. Just so, Tuan points out that his final few reps falter (even in a “cheat” form).

So “cheating” is movement quality, and can be used to help, as well as hurt. The “best” movement quality is the one that moves you to your goal. If your goal is to train without injury, poor movement quality is not best.

What does good movement quality look like?
I think this is the question. It’s been addressed by a lot of somatics practitioners and teachers over the years in terms of aesthetics. Good movement quality from an aesthetic standpoint is controlled and expressive. From a strength training standpoint, good movement quality also exhibits control and expression, in particular of the generation of force.

How do we develop good movement quality?
First, it depends on what the movement is that you want to develop quality in. In general, though, movement quality is the result of a healthy well-functioning neuromusculoskeletal system. That means the body has a broad “map” for movement that it can reference. Such a map comes from the practice of movement in diverse ways – fast, slow, high, low, weighted, free, with gravity or against it, etc.

Diversity of training is the key to good movement quality.

Diversity
The rule of diversity is true, as well, for bodybuilding, of all things. Focus on one plane of movement in one joint for too long, and that joint will begin to break down. We’ve heard of this as “repetitive strain injury.” But practice movements from a variety of angles and we not only avoid overuse, we work the muscle (and the rest of the body) from many angles, rounding out both the “map” and the muscle.

The way to do this is simple – play. Play is the exploration of possibility. Even within bodybuilding, play is possible, as the video above demonstrates. Controlled “cheat” curls aren’t really “cheating.” They’re playing with the rules of strict form to achieve the goal.

Another thing that can help is an understanding of anatomy and physiology. Why does the body move the way it does? How do I achieve xyz goal based on anatomy and physiology. This is the ground floor for approaching goals in strength or fitness training.

Focus on your knowledge base, and take that into your practice or training with a playful attitude and achieve superior results!!

Feel Like Crying…

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Among the emotions to play with is Sadness.

Specifically, we can play with the overt expression of sadness – crying.

When I worked at Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare in Boston, MA, my boss and I came up with a crying competition. We would come in to work every morning armed with a new “cry.”

We did the “man” cry. We did the “baby” cry, the “little kid who cries so hard they don’t make any sound” cry, the “silent tear” cry so common in movies.

By the end of the year, I think we had accumulated about 15 unique cries.

We thought it was hilarious, and there it ended. I didn’t think of it again till recently, when posting about playing with smack-talk and/or competitiveness in order to explore affective states and performance.

At my friend Steven Stanfield‘s birthday party this past weekend, we resurrected this old game. We must have had over 20 cries by the end of the weekend.

But why, you may ask? What’s the point?

Well, part of the point is to explore your capacity for make-believe.

Part of it is to feel deep within your body the effect that different types of facial expression, breathing, and emoting have on you.

Part of it may be to experience the somatic-psychic connection…that is, how bodily behavior can trigger psychological states or memories. Trying your different cries, do memories pop up unexpectedly? They likely will, since there’s no separation between your body and mind.

So, there it is…the suggestion. Play with crying. You’ll notice when you do that different types of crying (with their accompanying breathing patterns) elicit different feelings in the body.

Playgrounds, The New Yorker, and Total Crap

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An article in the most recent New Yorker entitled “State of Play,” gives a brief outline of the history of playgrounds in New York City, along with an overview of some of the playgrounds coming soon to a borough near you.

And it’s total crap.

Here’s the original Seward Park Playground:

And here’s David Rockwell’s upcoming Imagination Playground:

Don’t get me wrong. I like the idea of big blocks, and movable pieces. But the idea that imagination is contingent on those things is a perversion of thought, a disservice to imagination, and a marketing pitch.

What happened to playgrounds like the one the Bar-barians use? They’ve all disappeared in favor of molded-plastic “safe-houses.”

Don’t tell me it doesn’t take imagination to come up with some of those moves…

What about the outdoors? What about the playground of the woods? When I was a kid, it was my favorite place to play, hands down:

If the argument for these new-fangled playgrounds is that they’re more conducive to healthy imaginations, because they offer “movable objects,” and “diverse variegated shapes,” how do they stack up (pardon the pun) against nature – where there are sticks, stones, branches, leaves, dirt, water…and [gasp] other living creatures!!!

Not only that, but what about the fact that being in nature reduces stress hormones, improves mood, and increases the amount of physical activity you do?

It’s also nice and cool in the woods on a hot summer day. Ever notice that?

Oh oh! I’ve got another one! How about the fact that nature isn’t made of plastic? It’s totally biodegradable people! It’s GREEN! Get with the green revolution!

I’m making a serious effort to stay as positive as possible here.

Instead of planting some trees, grasses, and native plants, New York City has hired some architects to create safe playgrounds that will look like hell in 30 years after the sun beats down on them and degrades their plastic parts…or those parts get stolen or vandalized.

What are we afraid of? That, if we don’t “produce” something, it has no value? Or that, if we stop “producing” “things” we won’t be able to “make money?”

Don’t you see the fallacy in that? You’re just creating value anyway. I mean, actively making it up! Money is make-believe. We agree on the value of it. We agree that one thing is worth another. We agree to “follow the rules” of this game.

Now that’s what I call using your imagination!

However, we seem to be stuck in the game. We’ve mistaken the game for reality.

The reality is that the oil spill in the Gulf comes from this money-game we’ve decided to play.

The reality is that the plastic playgrounds of the future are made out of petroleum products.

The reality is that we have a choice. We can choose to plant park-grounds made of things that recycle the carbon we keep pumping out. We can choose to make places that are soft as grass…or we can choose to make places that are soft as “pebbled rubber.”

You choose.

Just don’t blame your choice on [your lack of] Imagination.

Here’s a good history of playgrounds in New York City.

Play versus Games

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What is the difference between “play” and “games?”

We “play” “games,” so they can’t be the same exact thing, right?

And we never “game” “play,” do we?

It seems like “play” is the state of being associated with the activity we do.

It is the way we do a game. How do we do a game? We do it “play”-wise.

I think that play is the state of being we assume. Game is the thing we do in that state of being.

That state of being is indicated by:
openness
imagination/creativity
curiosity
spontaneity/instinct
freedom/unselfconsciousness
compassion/empathy
energy/intention (directed or “undirected”)

…and we can do it with anything we choose.

A game is an action with specific rules designed to guide our play to specific ends – to an end.

That is, all games teach certain rules. All games, necessarily, limit our play in some specific way.

This has been a guide for how to play, and how create games

Playing with smack-talk

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In the physiology tracking arena open to us in play are many areas where we’ve experienced trauma in our lives – whether that’s negative emotions or feelings, or physical trauma.

An emotionally sensitive place that many of us may be familiar with is trash-talk on the playground or in sport.

While it occurs, and many folks approach it from the perspective of – “why is the other person trash-talking…maybe they’re insecure/abused/etc.” – I prefer to take a different tack.

Specifically, what is happening inside you when someone talks smack to you? How are you reacting? What does that represent for you?

For some of us, talking smack was just part of the experience. It’s nothing weird, or out of the ordinary. Sometimes it results in fist fights or hurt feelings, other times in heightened aggressiveness in the game or nothing at all.

For others, it was anything from insulting and aggravating, to a deeply humiliating experience.

Many people may have experienced both feelings at different times and in different situations.

The Bard of Trash-Talk


Some of the experience has to do with our own perceived level of competence (or lack thereof) in the game being played. Some of it has to do with simple social dynamics – not wanting to feel less powerful than another person. Some still to do with our level of commitment or connection to the game – if we’re not invested in it, it doesn’t really matter.

But none of that has anything to do with how we experience those feelings, and how we use that emotional energy to get what we really want out of the game.

Instead, most of us in life fall prey to those feelings. Yes, the other person triggers them, but once they are in us, they are our responsibility.

So how do you do that?

This is a little biased, but I think play is an excellent way to confront these feelings, to work into them, to acknowledge them as part of ourselves, and then to find a way to use them to get what we want from the game.

Try playing “the smack-talk game.” In this game, we play whatever other game we want, but when one person “loses” the other person rags on them relentlessly.

Just as with any other game, communication is key. Both parties need to be able to say “a little less rough,” or “a little more rough,” if their partner/opponent is not giving them what they need to grow.

There should also be a way to call timeout or uncle, if things get too crazy. These rules should be stated up front and agreed upon.

As with all games, once the players have bowed in, everything from there on out is play. It is supportive, aimed at learning and growth, and done in the spirit of wanting to continue the play.

Your momma sucks eggs!