Everybody does the same stuff

My first job after graduate school was Strength and Conditioning coach working with the University of Manchester.

The school had two types of athletes: individuals chosen to access support for being talented, and athletes playing in one of a dozen sports in the university “big leagues”. 

From Rugby league to Fencing to Cycling, we had a gamut of young athletes through the doors to help improve their sports performance.

The crazy thing…

There was tremendous overlap in their training plans, no matter the sport.

Sure, the Rugby players had bigger squat numbers than the badminton players, and the cyclists tended to lift weights with fewer numbers of reps per sets; and sure, there was a greater emphasis on anti-rotational hip strength for the freestyle skiers compared with the swimmers, but…

It was less that their sport and training created the differences in their physique and fitness and more that they played their sport because of their physique and fitness. 

Swimming doesn’t really develop the large v-taper in the back. People who have broad shoulders and a thin waist are naturally talented swimmers and excel in the sport.

Rugby players are naturally faster and heavier than their peers and surprisingly, gravitate towards the sport.

At the elite level, the sport chooses the athlete, not the other way round. 

Basic training + goal-specific actions 

Athletes ask questions about what kind of training will help their sport. Parents ask questions about what training will make them better at playing with their kids. People with excess fat ask what training will make them better at losing weight.

The wild thing is that all those people basically need to do the same training, alongside practicing their desired pursuit. 

Training + practice your sport

Training + playing with your kids

Training + eating less energy

Physical training is essential for expressing your talents, improving your skill set, your health, and your physique.

The difference in the training plans of different people is less in the modalities and more in the implementation.

Everyone should incorporate these three modalities:

• Lifting weights
• Expressing motion through full joint ranges
• Elevating their heart rate

Including all three into your exercise and training is how we satisfy the golden circles of looking great, feeling good, and performing well.

The three modalities are constant because they maintain the system of our body. 

And developing each part of your fitness plan relies on three principles. 

Everyone should focus on these three principles:

• Progressing their fitness capacities
• Aiming for efficiency and fluidity of movement
• Remaining consistent 

No matter the workout split, the exercise variation, intensity techniques or volume - the pillars of progress revolve around getting stronger, supple and fit, by aiming for better, artistic, and timeless.

Tactics are subordinate to principles. 

Focus on getting better, efficient, and habitual.

Love your body. Use it every way you can. - Baz Luhrmann.

To summarise, fitness knowledge is incredibly confusing both on and offline.

From my hundreds of hours coaching athletes, directors, and parents, and from hundreds more hours researching and applying fitness knowledge for my training, the winning formula always includes:

• The ability to express strength throughout full ranges of movement
• The ability to express high amounts of strength across and through the body
• The ability to create massive energy output during short and very long periods of time

The tactics will change periodically. The principles remain the same. 

I’m being deliberately vague because not everyone wants to pay the price of looking like a movie star heart throb, bikini model or action hero. 

But almost everyone wants to be stronger, live longer, keep up with their kids, and get out of bed without a stiff back! 

The difference between elite level fitness and above-average comes down to the severity of implementation.

You can feel like the youngest, most energetic person on the playground (or the golf course) by simply taking charge of the fundamentals and not quitting. And you can decide to become savage at a moment's notice.

The principles are the same. Everyone does basically the same stuff.