Shifting The Training Mindset

 Zone Ready Press Release 3.9.09

Shifting the Training Mindset

Los Angeles, CA – Zone Ready Coach Chris Gizzi is always looking for new ways to make an impact on athletes.  Camps, seminars, training programs, 1on1: all of which have been viable platforms to share his message that success is a choice.  Now with the help of Muscle & Fitness magazine, Coach Gizzi is using a new forum to reach all athletes the world over. 

Since October of last year, Chris has been adding some Zone Ready wisdom to the pages of this high respected periodical.  Within the “Training Notebook” portion, Coach Gizzi writes a page that brings the competitive athlete’s perspective to all things fitness.  In a magazine highly geared toward fitness aesthetics, Zone Ready has made an impression by bringing to light the advantages of sports performance training.

Coach Gizzi has always emphasized function before form.  In fact as he proves it himself, Chris even graces the recent April 2009 edition with a couple of action shots practicing what he preaches.  In his words: “I really wanted to show all their (Muscle & Fitness) readers that you can train for performance and still be muscular and lean.  All too often, young athletes see the typical models and lose sight on what they are really training for or what a normal healthy body looks like.”  Chris continues, “My intention is to promote realistic fitness for all athletes with the necessity to get sport specific.  So, it is necessary to show that training is a total body effort, not just a bicep curl.  Do the part and look the part – like a real athlete.”

To feel a little more of the Zone Ready mindset, check out the unedited version of Chris’s first submission to M&F:

Train Movements, not just Muscles.

Unleash your hidden athletic potential and create a balanced physique.

Coach Chris Gizzi, NASM-PES, NASM-CES, USAW

Zone Ready

In competitive sports, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.  Athletes become better at what they do by optimizing their sport specific movements, not by building bigger individual muscles.  In fact, a more coordinated and efficient movement pattern leads directly to increased success in their performance.  Indirectly, the athlete adds muscle in all the right places while decreasing excess body fat.  If you’re an athlete, this is the only way to fly.  If your fitness prerogative is more LGN focused (a.k.a. “Look Good Naked”); stay with me, keep an open mind and try these concepts that will shock your unsuspecting tissue.

It is clear that training movements directed at improving skills like jumping, running and hitting benefit athletes.  Regular efforts to practice variations of needed attributes will more readily transfer those attributes from training to competition.  Through diligent practice, muscles work in a coordinated fashion and winning habits are established.  A positive byproduct of this training is a physique that is tailored for sport—this means increased lean tissue and decreased body fat.  Everyone’s body will respond to this concept—train the nervous system and the muscular system will follow.

Let’s explore 4 ways to approach a workout to truly train functional movements that demand muscular teamwork:

1.            Be an animal:  To unleash your primal tendencies think push, pull, extend, rotate, etc.; rather that the typical “Tuesday is arms and back” training mentality.  This is actually just a slight change in perspective and exercise selection.  Search out exercises that demand coordination of different muscles in an efficient manner.  This is the way our muscles were meant to work; together and synergistically.  Give the muscle isolation exercises a rest!  No lone wolfs here, save time and build lean tissue by tapping into your muscles’ pack mentality.

2.            Stay grounded:  Great athletes generate tremendous force by pushing into the ground effectively.  Newton’s 3^rd law works in your favor; utilize the ground force reaction and translate it into effortless power.  Remember a time you had a perfect swing at a baseball/softball/golf ball; feel that baby jump off the stick with little effort and just take off.  That is because you were pushing into the ground like a champ!  Save all your seated or lying exercises for the beginning of your warmup or if you need to rehab an injury.  On your feet soldier to enhance power and burn more calories by activating bigger muscles in your upper and lower body.

3.            Train fast:  Sports (and life for that matter) move fast.  We can safely train that tempo in our workouts to improve sport specific (life realistic) movements.  Performing slow movements with big weights develops strength in periodized training programs, but it leaves your ‘game speed’ in quick sand.  It’s one thing to be strong and it’s another to be powerful.  Power means taking that strength and moving it ferociously.  Once you establish impeccable technique and a formidable base of brute strength, cut your resistance in half and move it as fast as possible.  Athletes “train the way they are going to fight” to develop the intensity that translates into a powerful performance.

4.            Stay within range:  Performing full range of motion exercises are needed to enhance resiliency to injury, assist in workout recovery, and promote increased awareness of individual joint and total body mobility.  They have their place in segments of your warmup and injury prevention programs.  However, when it comes to the “meat and potatoes” of your workout; these extreme ranges can lead to lackluster results and even injury.  Take for example enhancing the vertical jump.  No one goes down heels to butt to jump his/her highest, instead the optimal jumping position is somewhere in the ¼ squat range.  Therefore, the majority of your squatting and jumping (plyometric) training should be in the ¼ squat range in order to improve your vert.  Anything above or below will not directly promote your ability to jump higher.  Apply this principle across the board to all sport performance endeavors—train in the range you are intending to perform.  Limit unnecessary wear and tear on your muscles and joints in order to elicit the good pain from your most demanding exercises.

Try these tips within the arsenal of training exercises you are using now.  Training focused on movements (not just muscles) has produced success in many elite and professional athletes.  Use what they know to improve your raw athleticism and create a more balanced physique.