First, it must be said that it is an absolute honor to be associated with this event. There are so many people who make The Seminar possible that if I attempted to list them all I’m certain I would miss someone. So with that in mind, I’d like to say thank you to everyone who was involved with the weekend, from the presenters, to the people in attendance both in Richmond and via the web, to the people who help out behind the scenes with everything from transportation, to set up, to helping with the presenters, everyone, thank you very much for being a part of it. I hope The Seminar is something that you enjoy and are proud to be part of as much as I am. Ok, now that that is said, let’s talk about what I personally took from the weekends’ presentations:

Mike Robertson:
We started out with Mike Robertson discussing what, in his opinion, corrective exercise is. Leading up to The Seminar, Mike said numerous times that the lineup had a ton of really smart people, and Mike Robertson. Mike’s humble thought of himself was immediately proven to be just that, and he showed very shortly that what he should have said was, “there is a great line up of smart people” and left it at that. His holistic approach is, in my mind, dead on, but so many people miss the boat on it. They pass the buck, or just run and hide from actually training whomever it is they are working with and just trying to “fix” them. They can actually train because that’s what corrective work is, and that, to me, is a priceless message: get them better no matter what.
Lesson: The whole is equal to the sum of its parts, and at the same time, the HOLE is equal to the sum of its part. Work to improve performance while working the corrective strategies needed, both on a team and individual basis.

Cal Dietz:
Understanding that, as Dan John said, “the goal is to keep the goal the goal”, Cal brought programming back into focus in his presentation. His methods, which can be found in his book here, are unique, but very focused because “the more specific we can make the stress, the farther we can push the organism to the direction we want it to be.” Keeping a focus to your training and making sure that your training is within that focus is the best way possible to lead to the adaptations to your athletes. Although this sounds simple, in reality it is a very complex, specified, and important concept to follow.
Lesson: Find what qualities need to be improved with that athlete and design the training to stress the athlete to improve the specific quality. Read the rest of this entry