Today’s episode features trainer, educator and consultant, Dr. Pat Davidson, back for his second appearance on the show.  

I had the good fortune of meeting Pat at his “Rethinking the Big Patterns” seminar August in San Francisco, and had an awesome time taking in Pat’s training philosophy in person with lots of good discussion and hands on demonstrations.  In the aftermath of the seminar, I wanted to record a show with Pat where we hone in on “doing no harm”, particularly in the sense of how we address weaknesses and tend to over-coach pretty much everything.  

One thing I love about Pat’s work is that, not only is he brilliant, but also continually brings things back to what is practical in real life situations.  Pat isn’t afraid to defer to simple, bare bones training to give clients and athletes the best possible experience.

For today’s show, we get into how to approach an athlete’s weaknesses without hurting their confidence and the overall training process, and how that filters into screens, warmups, and more.  

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.  

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Key Points:

How to approach bringing up an athlete’s weaknesses without hurting their natural athleticism in the process

How much an athlete can improve in tri-planar function based on their rib cage dynamics

Pat’s take on movement screens in general

How some athletes can “fail movement screens” and have robust and resilient careers in pro sports

Pat’s take on excessive warmups and traditional “muscle activation”

Pat Davidson Quotes

“They noticed the unpunished group had the same numerical improvement in performance as the punished group… it’s a tendency of individuals to come back to the mean”

“It seems as there is no point in giving someone negative reinforcement”

“If I really want to screw up a tennis player, I’ll ask them, “do you notice what you do with your elbow on a backhand””

“I am very hesitant to tell people about things they are not doing well”

“(In regards of movement screens) The table doesn’t really lie, people can trick you when they stand up… the table to me is your potential”

“A cable pull-through is the hardest (deadlift based movement) to screw up”

“All models are wrong, but some models are useful… how useful can your model actually be”

“It’s not like a straight leg raise test are going to yield some magic answers for you that make a difference in the way you coach things”

“The FMS is reproducible inside of itself… but that information is not transferrable to tasks outside itself”

“The FMS and SFMA have zero frontal plane assessments”

“Just by putting you on one leg doesn’t mean its more tri-planar than anything else”

“Let’s get this pelvis over the foot, and now this person’s adductor lit up like a Christmas tree”

“A warmup does not need to take 20 minutes…. if you are still doing (the same warmup drills) you haven’t learned the thing”

“If you are trying to mobilize your big toe in warmups, you have probably missed the big picture”

“Learn how to prune your tree to a much smaller level so you lose much less time in the training process”

About Pat Davidson

Director of Training Methodology and Continuing Education at Peak Performance, NYC.

Author of MASS and MASSII -Assistant Professor at Brooklyn College, 2009-2011

Assistant Professor, Springfield College 2011-2014

Head Coach Springfield College Team Ironsports 2011-2013

175 pound Strongman competitor. Two time qualifier for world championships at Arnold Classic

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