Foundations

Last week I spent several days in Kamaishi working with the players of the Seawaves R.F.C to get their 2012 strength and conditioning program started up.

I found myself talking a lot about foundations.  I was encouraging them to strip things down and get really solid basics set with regards to their mobility, lifting technique, unilateral symmetry and strength, movement patterning, etc.

I told them that I understood it may not be the most exciting training, but it will set the stage for more intense training sessions in the future and most importantly their performance on the pitch later this year.

For athletes accustomed to highly demanding training sessions it can be a bit hard to back things off and just dial in fundamentals, however it is absolutely critical from time to time.  When we attempt to progress beyond what our foundation can support it leads to a lot of futile effort at best (injury at worst).

I think most people are abstractly cognizant of this concept.  Images like the pyramid above visually convey the message that the pinnacle at the top only exists because of the much wider base below; and creating that base can be more time consuming than creating the upper peak.

I received a very real reminder of this whole foundation concept when I returned to SYNERGY from Kamaishi and looked out the window to see this:

Construction began for a 6 story building in the lot across the street from SYNERGY several months ago.  Though I am furious about what it is going to do to the awesome view we have of the park, it has been quite interesting watching the progress day by day.

Over the course of the past several months they did nothing but foundation work.  They drilled holes, embedded support beams deep into the ground, poured lots of concrete, added support rods into the concrete...the list goes on and they were at it for MONTHS.

Then, foundation work finished and 'suddenly' structure started going up.  Over the course of a few days while I was in Kamaishi, they built everything you see in the picture.  It happened extremely quickly, and at the rate they are going I imagine they will have the whole 6 stories up in a few months.

But the only reason they could build vertically so quickly was because they spent so much time on the foundation.  When the project is all done, I imagine they will have spent between half to one-third of the total build time on the foundation alone.  The foundation is that important and sets the stage for everything else.

The same is true with regards to conditioning.  If they do fundamentals at all, people like to think that they can focus on it for a couple weeks and be all set to do higher performance work.  It really doesn't work that way.  Just like the building above, the fundamental work can (and should) take almost as long as the higher range work...that is just natural law.

If someone is new to conditioning they are essentially starting from a clean slate and the foundation needs to built properly from scratch.  With seasoned athletes, especially if they have injury, strength imbalances and movement/postural asymmetries, returning to basics for an extended period will help them advance beyond their previous limits.

When people plateau in their development, it is often because the foundation is not appropriate for what they are trying to build.

Maintaing a solid foundation, even at the expense of everything else, will serve you the best for the long term.  Having that solid foundation allows rapid growth whenever the opportunity arises.

Currently I am about the busiest that I have ever been in my life.  Subsequently, I am not able to train as I would like and definitely I can see where certain performance markers have dropped off.  HOWEVER, what I am diligent about is keeping a certain base-level foundation.  As long as I preserve that, I know I can easily bounce back into higher performance work in a relatively short period of time when I have the chance.

It's like the old adage: "After years of hard work, we are an overnight success."  The 'overnight' jump that people see and praise is only possible because of all the work that set a great foundation.  It is the same for all facets of life in the world around us.