Functional First Forum by Coach Daragh

Unpopular Opinion: You do not HAVE to do Olympic lifts with athletes to improve their speed/power. Sometimes getting athletes to adjust to these advanced and frankly complicated movement patterns is not a productive use of valuable time when priming them for competition. Oly lifts are not the be all and end all of VBT. There are countless ways of incorporating other methods to implement into programs that will directly correspond to their performance within their specific sport. That being said, the proprioceptive adaptations required to adjust to proper technique within the Olympic movements can provide a huge benefit to the athlete’s overall capability to better move themselves through space efficiently.

Worrying about what ‘harmful properties’ are in diet fizzy drinks while you continue to consume a consistent diet of refined/processed carbs is like a cyclist trying to smooth out the gravel along the path they cycle to work on with a cheese grater instead of pumping up their flat tire.

The idea of the '𝙋𝙀𝙍𝙁𝙀𝘾𝙏 𝙒𝙊𝙍𝙆𝙊𝙐𝙏 𝙋𝙍𝙊𝙂𝙍𝘼𝙈' in my own opinion leads to a very narrow outlook and stance on exercise prescription, not to mention also causing individuals to act as if they are literal robots when tackling important and unique characteristics of clients. The perfect exercise or group of exercises simply DOES NOT EXIST. There is far too much variability in each individual's genetics, goals, anatomical variance, injury history, medical history, lifestyle, etc for this to ever be a thing! This way of viewing the situation provides a misconception that there is always only one set way to more appropriately target a set individual's circumstances. What a boring way to look at it, as well as causing hesitancy within coaches to be creative and productive with their knowledge out of fear of administering something outside of that 'perfect method'. In order to become a truly effective coach one must learn adaptability within their methods and become more aware through actual experience about the differing styles and methods of implementation. There is never only one way to achieve a person's goals!!

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