It’s Not Just What You Do But HOW You Do It

1990.

Summer.

I was 9 years old.

I started really getting into basketball. You know the excitement you get when you know you get to go and play, and it’s the best feeling in the world?

I was all about it.

I didn’t care what I was doing out there just as long as I had the ball in my hand and I was doing something. Shooting threes, reverse lay-ups, crossing over my imaginary defender (who played hard nosed defense by the way) and backing up a post to shoot half hooks right over their fingertips.

I would get lost in it for hours.

Good times.

We should all do more of that with the hectic lifestyles of the 21st century.

Think about that, how often you do basic fun things you used to do that put a smile on your face?

Yeah, exactly!

But back to the story...

Once I started getting better and knew I really wanted to play in college and the pro’s, I started putting in more and more work, both with skill work, weights and off course – shooting jumpers in the gym.

I spent endless hours doing drills and taking shots. Many times I’d try to copy the superstars and shoot fade away jumpers, long threes, and anything else I saw on TV from the top NBA players.

Even after putting in hours though, I felt like my progress was nowhere near what it should have been since I was putting in hours and hours of work.

One day one of my coaches walked in early while I was doing the drills and didn’t say anything for a while, he just observed.
After I was done he came up to me and said he’s impressed by my work ethic but told me I’m also wasting a lot of energy and training the wrong things.

I didn’t understand what he was saying, then he asked me: “How many shots are you taking?”

I told him I was taking at least 500-750 every day.

Then he asked: “How many do you make?”

I didn’t know the answer. He did!

The jumper that pierced many eyes, as you can see: “Hand down, man down.” At the Nike Battleground finals in Slovenia.

“You wasn’t with me when I was shooting in the gym” – Rick Ross
(I just love that quote and it was appropriate at this time, just sayin…)

I was missing more than half of my shots and I was not being guarded.

The coach told me I was practicing to be good at missing shots.

Then it clicked.

We talked and he explained I should start with easier shots, focusing on the technique and on making it perfect. Then being repetitive to create a habit and movement pattern that I won’t have to think about in the future.

“Worry more about how many you made and the percentage of makes rather than total shots”, he said.

I started moving closer to basket and really breaking down form, making it crisp. Then I focused on 300 made shots per day and making a high percentage of them.

As my form got better and I started hearing the “swoosh” of the net more often, then I started taking tougher shots, whether further out, crossing over chairs before, increasing the speed of the drill, etc.

My game improved a ton and everyone could tell.

The funny thing was that I was actually spending less time in the gym that I was before.

The quality of the time I spent training was on another level though.

The fact is we do this in many areas of our life; sometimes it’s one thing and sometimes another:

1. At work - being busy vs. productive.
2. At home – not being present with our loved ones and thinking about what you have to do tomorrow, etc.
3. At the gym, rushing through exercises and not focusing on the form, or not paying attention to your breaks, prescribed program (if you even have one)
4. In company with friends – not really listening to them and enjoying their company because we are “worried” about a hundred other things.
5. While traveling – being so focused on your destination that you don’t even enjoy the journey (if there ever was an analogy for how many people live their life; this is it)

As much as I hope reading this will make you become present in everything you do in life, I understand my super-powers of persuasion aren’t to that level (yet), so I’ll settle for helping you get more results and less nagging pain from exercises you may already be using.

You know to get the most bang-for-your-buck in training you should be using exercises such as:

• Squats
• Deadlifts
• Push Ups
• Rows
• Lunges
• Pull Ups
• Presses

This list could obviously be pretty long but those are some of the basic movements everyone should be doing in some format or another.

The problem is that once people start using these exercises, they are left to figure them out by themselves or learn from looking at someone else at the local gym, which doesn’t do them much justice most of the time.

How do I know?

Because I observe what is going on daily while I get my protein smoothie from a big box gym.

The exercises listed above as well as many others are great but only when done right.

When the form is not on point, not only can they increase the risk of injury but you also won’t be working the muscles you would like to develop.

I decided to start breaking down some of the exercises we use at Vigor Ground that are staples in our program design and go through how we coach them so our clients have great form and get the most bang for the buck from them.

How we cue the exercises may differ with each individual but the coaching in the videos has worked with the majority of people we train to get the better form, results, and has helped alleviate many nagging pains.

Use these coaching cues in the derivatives of these exercises as well and keep an open mind.

Kettlebell Goblet Squat (applies to Front and Olympic Back Squats)

TRX Bodyweight Row (applies to other Rowing variations)

Trap Bar Deadlift

Push Up

Try to make some changes to the way you do these exercises next time you go to the gym and see how much better you will feel doing them (I’m not promising easier because doing things right will make them harder most of the time), as well as which muscles will get sore afterwards.

The key is to keep your ego in check and do things right so that you can build the best you possible.

One of the keys to getting the best results is staying healthy and injury free so it’s important how you do the exercises and not just which ones you do.

While you’re at it and you’re building habits of being present with your training and paying attention to how you do things (not just what). Let it trickle into your every day life and work as well.

You’ll be happier, so will your family and you may actually get more done and get ahead at work too.

I’m off to be present with flipping some tires, you should too.

P.S. In the comments section let me know which other exercises you would like to see broken down into cues and how we coach them at Vigor Ground and I will implement them into the “It’s not just what you do but how you do it” video series.