Blog

A few years ago, I was watching a professional MMA fight at a nearby casino. I owned shares in a MMA business at the time, and we had several fighters on the card. While a fight was on, a tall man strode toward the stage, and stood at ringside with his arms folded, shaking his head. He wore a black turtleneck and black dress pants, and had a full head of silver hair. He looked like a lion. I later learned the “silver lion” owned a “traditional” martial arts school, and disapproved of MMA. He told his classes that a purist in any discipline could beat any MMA fighter, who jumped between all styles. Of course, he was selling one path instead of many, so his position didn’t surprise me. But everyone else asked: “Why doesn’t he just get in the ring and prove it?” A fighter with MMA experience knows that every discipline has strengths and weaknesses. Jiu-jitsu is fantastic until someone draws a knife. Boxing is perfect until someone falls down. In a “no-holds-barred” world, it’s simply no longer wise to become expert at one system and exclude everything else. Instead, an expert sees between systems and chooses his strategy based on the fight. For a beginner, any system will work. So the expert chooses one for his student. He says, “You can skip this part” or “You should spend extra time here. It’s important.” Then, when the student is ready, a new system is introduced. It’s true in the fight game: a student should become a good wrestler, spending years to master the sport, before she moves to MMA. It’s true in CrossFit: a student should master the squat and the pushup before doing “Angie.” And it’s true in business: a student can use a “funnel” or “free trial” if they don’t know what else to do. But mastery of one system is no longer enough. Now a ...

In “Supertraining,” Mel Siff makes a case for “imperfect training”: occasionally varying the balance of loads, stances, speed and others to better prepare an athlete for sport. Older coaches will remember Paul Chek’s “balance” training for the “core” in the early 2000s. For years, parents visiting my gym would cite the value of “training the little muscles in the core” while talking about their kids. Heck, “core” is STILL a buzzword in training circles of lower educational average. Obviously, the nature of sport is unpredictable. But can the training room best prepare an athlete for that unpredictability? Is the scope of unpredictability different for each sport, and therefore trainable only on the field or rink? “Imperfect training,” in my mind, can be spread across a broad spectrum: – inherently unsafe, with little value (risk > reward) – inherently unsafe, with moderate-to-high value (risk = reward) – inherently safe, with moderate-to-high value (reward > risk) – inherently safe, with little value (risk + reward = 0.) It’s irrelevant to our purposes to discuss activities which create no reward. But all training carries an element of risk. Small “injuries” – including muscle tearing, elevated blood pressure, glycogen depletion and exhaustion – are necessary to spur super compensation. In that light, where is the line between “small injuries created on purpose” and “small injuries that are a side effect”? What about small injuries that cause no real limitation or long-term damage, like blisters? “Imperfect” training raises the risk associated in training. BOSU balls were popular toys (but not with Siff, nor with me) for years. The unstable surface of a BOSU ball was argued to create more stability around the ankle and knee joints. Higher risk for a reward or arguable value. Where do box jumps fit into the risk/reward picture? Low-rep box jumps done from on high? High-rep box jumps done from a medium height? Where is the “safe” line in either scenario? ...