Absolute: Podcast Recommendation. Training Outside of the Groove
Westside Barbell Podcast
The “Groove”
This podcast discusses the theory and practice of how Tom Barry and I were running internal strength training in parallel with external strength training to optimize athlete health and enhance athlete performance for the athletes at Westside Barbell. We have been running this model since 2017. Both Tom and I arrived at Westside Barbell in 2011 and have worked together as athlete consultants soon after and still currently to this day. In this podcast, we talk about what Tom refers to as “the groove” and discuss strategies and training tools for how to get outside “the groove.”
The Groove = Accommodation + Stagnation
The coach/therapist who reads Absolute will understand immediately when listening to this podcast that “the groove” we are talking about is biological accommodation and neurological stagnation. From a complexity science standpoint, understand “the groove” as an attractor state of, at best, sustaining fitness levels and, more than likely, fitness levels decreasing while training work is being performed with the intent to acquire higher levels of fitness/capacity. This is the irony many face while training for performance. This is a major difference between a steady state static attractor where the system becomes comfortable with the “status quo”, versus a more dynamic or cyclic attractor whereby the system continually traverses multiple states on its way to efficiency. More simply, “the groove” is an attractor state that we do not want the athletes and individuals we are in charge of being in.
FRS Strength Coaches
Take into account this podcast was recorded before the FRS Internal Strength Model - so for certified FRS strength coaches, it is important to realize that all the input cycles are the training tools you will need to train outside the groove at the internal level.