How Basics Get Missed in Sports

Have a more stable foundation with your human basics in

Throwing a baseball is an activity where the legs don’t come anywhere close to a full squat.

As a result, baseball trainers commonly prevent players from using their natural, deep squat.

This created a challenge for me when helping baseball guys rehab and trying to explain why I want to progress to strengthening through their natural mobility. Then I became aware of the following fact…

THE HARDEST HURLER IN HUMAN HISTORY (Aroldis Chapman), WITH THE ATHLETIC LONGEVITY TO THROW OVER 100 MPH FOR 16 STRAIGHT SEASONS AND IS STILL THROWING OVER 100 MPH AS HE APPROACHES AGE 40, HAS BEEN STRENGTHENING THROUGH HIS FULL MOBILITY SINCE HIS 20s!!!

Now we can begin the conversation, and it’s not complicated…

#1. Just because the basic motion of your sport isn’t a full squat doesn’t change the fact that it’s a human basic. Neglecting a human basic leaves extra abilityon the table. Stronger legs and glutes plus better hip flexibility are examples.

#2. With your human basics in, you have a more stable foundation from which you can push harder at your specific sport motions! (Chapman has a BALANCED ROUTINE OF HUMAN BASICS. His lifting routine is actually the least “baseball-specific” I have ever seen!)

#3. With human basics in, plus working to master your sport’s unique motions, you can then further fine-tune and customize.

This creates a simple 1-2-3 for how I think about athletic breakthroughs (Human Basics > THE SPORT MASTERY > Further Customization)

Unfortunately, growing up as a basketball player I was forbidden from full squats by every trainer I went to.

This was done out of misunderstanding, not malice.

I have never done a deep squat in a basketball game, but that’s exactly WHY it was the single most life-changing shift in my training.

It filled the greatest missing human basic I wasn’t getting in my sport!

I was able to self-rehab, self-market, get college scholarships, and lead my team in minutes played thanks to my knees becoming more resilient as I went.

I was not expecting to ever dunk a basketball in this lifetime, but with greater protection, I found I could try to jump harder and harder.

I was able to live a new life, and I’ve now easily retained the ability to dunk for over a decade.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Sixteen years ago when I first experimented against what I’d been taught, I was not able to jump right back into full squats. I experimented with all sorts of regressions to work around my knee pain and build back up.

The summary of that is: heel elevation plus counterbalance are key factors to help most people enjoy full squats even if they thought they couldn’t. The farther away the load is from you, the less pressure on your knees. Heel elevation helps make up for lost mobility, and when done as part of a well-rounded routine with something like strengthening through your full ankle mobility (second photo, below the squat progression), you can get the best of both worlds.

Think in terms of enjoying one workout at a time, over weeks-months-years! The human body adapts… slowly.

LAST REMINDER:

Everyone has a different genetic starting point.

You think Aroldis Chapman’s 6’4” catapult-like frame is good genetics?

Throw him in the sport of gymnastics and he has terrible genetics!

Different sports and positions have different advantageous designs.

You can often overcome non-ideal genetics for a specific sport, but you have no guarantees.

Sports are interesting because they’re hard!

I can’t throw 100 mph but I can dunk because of the viewpoint shift in this article, and that’s priceless for me.

As a dad of three kids, I can take care of my body so much easier than before. That’s even more valuable to me than the entire subject of sport.

Yours in Solutions,

Ben

For those on the app (atgonlinecoaching.com), you’ll see the program layout simplified to this:

ZERO: While I wouldn’t want to live without a few pieces of equipment, this has been useful for people to know how I coach people with zero equipment.

BASICS: This is my bread and butter and what I obsess on every week.

PRO SPORTS: Behind the scenes, I’ve been lucky enough to train top-10 players in the MLB, NFL and NBA, among other sports. Here you can see the various customizations I make upon the ATG Basics program.

We also have a growing number of amazing in-person coaches and gyms around the world, with a recently improved map to see where they are: map.atgforcoaches.com