You gotta love college basketball this time of year.
March Madness is in full swing and guys and gals everywhere are blowing off work to drink beer and watch the madness unfold all day. I am no exception.
While I didn't blow off work and sit on my ass from Thursday to Sunday, I definitely watched my share of hoops.
As someone who played the sport since I had the strength to shoot a ball, I understand the value of repetition. I used to spend hours upon hours in my backyard shooting hoops as a kid.
I remember watching my dad putting up the hoop on our garage. I stood there and watched him carry this heavy as shit basketball hoop up the ladder, hold it in place, and screw it into the side of our garage. Yeah, my dad was a pretty strong dude. I still wonder how he managed to do that all by himself. Anyway, I was sooo excited!
I grew up in the country, so I didn't have a lot of neighbor kids to play with. As a result I spent most of my free time outside shooting and chasing down rebounds. At first, I didn't even have a concrete slab to play on. Just a level space of uneven dirt. I suppose this explains why my shooting skills were so much better than my ball handling skills. Our property was on an incline too, so if I badly missed a shot, I usually had to chase the ball down the driveway before it rolled into the woods. Fun times.
I also had to walk to school, uphill, both ways, barefoot.
Through this repetition, I developed into a pretty decent shooter. What does this have to do with deadlifts you ask?
Repetition builds efficiency.
If you want to be great at something, you need to do it over and over again. I've heard Dave Tate say it takes 10,000 repetitions to master a particular movement. I actually think it is much more than this, but you get the point.
A lot of popular programming out there pays no attention to this law of repetition. "Muscle confusion" is a term used quite often these days. Random, myopic programming is everywhere. Why? People have no patience anymore. They have to do something different every time they go to the gym because they get bored. Instant gratification at its finest. Few look at the big picture anymore.
Lets say you have a goal to deadlift double your bodyweight. Well, if you only deadlift once a month, you don't have a very good shot at accomplishing that goal. The same can be said of any other movement or skill. Some level of mastery must be achieved to have success.
Sticking with our basketball theme, lets use free throws as an example. Anyone who has watched or played the sport for any extended period of time understands the importance making free throws down the stretch. Often times this is the difference between winning and losing. As one might expect, we spent A LOT of time shooting free throws at practice. If you ever played organized basketball, I'm sure you did too.
Deadlifts (or any skilled movement) should be approached the same way. Most of your results will come from high skill, multi-joint movements like squats, deadlifts, swings, snatches, cleans etc. The more proficient you become with these movements from a strength and technique standpoint, the more successful you will be. Just like free throws.
Taking this all into consideration, you should be doing these movements A LOT.
As Dan John would say "If it's important, do it every day." Just like brushing your teeth or buckling your seat belt.
While you don't have to do it every day, if you want to hit that double bodyweight deadlift you had better be doing some variation of this movement AT LEAST two times per week. The same goes for any other movement. I am a firm believer you can't serve two masters. Meaning pick ONE THING you want to improve and focus on that for a set period of time. Anything else is a waste of time and energy.
Practice Makes Perfect
Everything you do should have a purpose. Improving the big lifts comes from patience and LOTS of repetition.
Many give very little thought to the training process. They show up, train, then proceed to completely forget about what they just did. No training log, no self-education, and not surprisingly, no results. These individuals take no ownership. You don't have to be a total nerd like me. I know you are busy. We all are. Just put forth a little effort.
Take ownership of your program. Don't just follow it blindly. Read, explore different schools of thought and methodologies, keep a training log, and flourish.
No comments:
Post a Comment