Michael Boyle's Strengthcoach.com Blog

Training Elite Athletes- Be Brilliant at the Basics

( Editors note- my good friend Dewey Nielsen wrote this as an MMA article. It was so good I edited it to apply to all sports)

What works best for an athlete? Linear or undulating periodization? Kettlebells or dumbbells? Olympic lifts from the floor or hang? What do you do for conditioning?

I get questions like these a lot and usually my answer comes down to “it doesn’t matter”. I am not saying that undulating periodization doesn’t work or kettlebells are worthless. What I am saying is these things only matter once you are “Brilliant at the Basics”. You must first understand a few things:

What is strength?
What is endurance?
What is power?
What is power endurance?
What is speed?
What is agility?
What is mobility?
What is anaerobic and aerobic conditioning?

What are all of these things and how should we train them? Where do these components…