Friday, October 29, 2010

A little more about quality

In Gray Cook's book Movement, he illustrates a great example about movement quality and movement quantity. This simple analogy is something we should all think about when we exercise and teach. Quality is not just practiced, it must be learned and then earned. Here it is:

"People often consider high-intensity exercise the most extreme or radical form of self-imposed physical punishment for performance gains. To illustrate the error in the point, consider an example of the test drive and the tune up."

"A test drive is the equivalent of pushing to the extreme and noting the limits of physical capacity. It is a necessary step to mark times and set goals as one strives  for improved performance. In contrast, a tune-up is the exercise equivalent of deliberate attention to any part of the physical system not functioning optimally or normally. Movement screening and assessment offer an additional piece of information to the tune-up. We optimize and normalize movement patterns in this tune-up process. In most cases, the application of the fresh, frequent, and flawless mentality is the recipe of choice as we tune movement performance"

We have focused too much on our quantity already. Let us start focusing on quality and mastering the prerequisite skills before we start to worry about times, reps, and weight. 

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