5 Needed Principles for High Performance

I have been watching a few interviews and videos that Red Bull High Performance Director Andy Walsh has been involved in over the last few days.  Andy Walsh has created one of the most unique high performance centers in the world.  He is always trying to find new and effective ways to train athletes, make them better.  Last year, you may have heard of the Stratos program, where Felix Bumgartner jumped from Space!  Regardless of going after space jumps, motor bike acrobatics, 100 mile bike rides, or soccer goals, he believes in figuring out 5 principles.

1.  Motivation:  Find out what motivates the athlete.  It doesn't matter if it is intrinsic or extrinsic.  Intrinsic would be something on the inside of the athlete.  Pride, ego, desire for improvement.  Extrinsic is things like money, fame or recognition.

2.  Repetition:  This is important for improvement.   You have to be able to practice the task you are trying to get better at.  Hard to improve a task if attempts are not made at the task.

3.  Feedback:  There must be a way for the athlete to know they are improving.  Is the repetition method working?  Without feedback it is very hard to be able to gauge if you are getting better.

4.  Progression:  Learn a skill then learn a harder version of that skill.  If progression isn't built in, boredom will most likely occur.  The athlete isn't challenged.  There won't be engagement in the long term.  With out progression, skill acquisition will stall and improvement will also become negligible.

5.  Failure:  The environment will need to be set up so that athlete does not fear failure.  Failure shouldn't be looked at as punishment, but as a learning tool.  We just learned what doesn't work.  It shows where your limits are, most important it shows where you need to put the work in.  Andy believes this is where many programs fail.

As a therapist I've been trying to figure out how to include these 5 principles into each patient/athlete encounter.  Most of the time, pain will drive someone in to see us, but the majority of the time the pain has been present for awhile.

Why Now?  Why did they decide to do something now?  This is an important element to discern.  What was their motivation.  Recently, a lady told me her feet had bothered her for years, but now she couldn't walk to church.  That was her MOTIVATION.

I thought her lack of big toe mobility was the issue.  I did some work on her big toes and we started going over some routines she needed to do several times a day (REPETITION)

She was able to walk about 5 minutes before the discomfort would set in.  Anything over this was going in the right direction.  (FEEDBACK)

Every 3rd day we upped her distance she was to walk.  (PROGRESSION)

Every Sunday she walked to church.  We were then able to gauge where she was "failing" at.  (FAILURE)

In my own rehab jumping rope has become all 5 of those principles.  It's nice to see where I can get better, where I can progress, what moves continue to hit my shins (failure).  Andy talks about skateboarders as the leading candidates for progression, feedback and failure.  They can practice tricks over and over and over again and falling is never seen as punishment or failure, just learning.  

See how you can incorporate these 5 Principles into your training and treatment plans.