WHY DO YOU TRAIN?
We live to play in the mountains, the rivers, the trails, not to get our name on the white board for a heavy deadlift.
Your time in the weight room should enhance your time exploring the outdoors. Functional Strength Training utilizes a seasonal periodization, to develop strength and movement mastery with a focus on making you more resistant to injury when you are outside playing. The goal is not to make you look like bodybuilder or to brag about your fastest Fran time. It is to prepare you for playing outside, so you can paddle, climb, ski, run, & bike everyday.
TRAINING LIKE AN ATHLETE MEANS MORE THAN GOING HARD IN THE GYM
Our sports and outdoor pursuits are seasonal. We have “off-seasons” simply because the weather sucks to be out on the trails, in the peaks or on the river. In the gym, we use these outdoor “off-seasons” to get strong for the up-coming “in-season”, whether it is skiing and riding all winter, desert climbing in the spring, or paddling all summer. When the in-season rolls around we gear down on the heavy loading and intensity and shift our focus to a maintenance and durability cycle. We address movement patterns, muscle imbalances and aid recovery from “over doing it” day after day playing outside. Why would you want your legs so fried from your weight room session that you can’t even hike Glory? Athletes cycle their training seasonally for a reason, you should too.
TRAIN FOR DURABILITY
Previous injury is the number 1 precursor to future injury. We all have our own history of injury. Injury changes the way our bodies move and how we perceive that movement. The better the athlete the better they are at compensating. Eventually that compensation catches up with all of us and we suffer from an injury yet again. You can stop this cycle. Train smarter not just harder. Loading (ie. weight, speed, aerobic demand, stress) a dysfunctional movement pattern only reinforces the bad habit. Sure you’ll get stronger for a while but eventually you will get hurt because your movement foundation is unstable. Prioritize movement quality not movement quantity.
STOP PUTTING FITNESS ON DYSFUNCTION
Functional Strength Training is sports performance oriented and requires that you can move well and that you can move without pain. You don’t have to have experience or be great at all the lifts, you simply need to be able to move free of pain. If movement hurts Corrective Exercise Therapy is where you need to begin your journey back to sport and fitness.
